*    NOV  26  1902      *' 


Section, j:xCiD 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 


THE    INTEGRITY    OF 
SCRIPTURE     7^       ^ 

PLAIN  REASONS  FOR  REJECTING  THE 
CRITICAL  HYPOTHESIS.  BY  THE  REV. 
JOHN  SMITH,  M.A.,  D.D.,  BROUGHTON 
PLACE     CHURCH,     EDINBURGH  7%P 


NEW  YORK    CHICAGO    TORONTO 

FLEMING   H.   REVELL   COMPANY 

LONDON :    HODDER   AND    STOUGHTON 

1902 


PRINTED    IN    GREAT    BRITAIN 

BY 

TURNBULL    AND    SPEARS,    EDINBURGH 


PREFACE 

These  chapters  were  delivered  in  the  form  of  monthly  lectures 
to  the  author's  congregation  during  the  winter  and  spring  just 
past.  They  are  not  to  be  considered  as  a  discussion  of  criticism 
from  a  purely  critical  standpoint,  though  it  is  believed  they 
expose  the  fundamental  logical  fallacies  pervading  the  critical 
method.  They  are  an  answer  to  a  direct  challenge  from  the 
side  of  criticism,  giving  "  plain  reasons "  such  as  might  occur 
to  a  minister  or  an  educated  layman  why  this  hypothesis  should 
be  rejected.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  come  close  enough 
to  the  kernel  of  the  question  to  be  decisive  in  their  objections. 
But  firmly  believing  that  this  movement  is  even  already  fading 
away,  being  smitten  by  its  own  excesses,  the  writer  has  sought  to 
locate  it  in  the  general  stream  of  modern  thought,  and  to  bring 
out  the  more  recent  points  of  view,  both  in  the  study  of  antiquity, 
and  in  the  philosophic  recognition  of  the  spiritual,  which  frown 
on  the  whole  speculation. 

While  written  from  month  to  month,  amid  innumerable  con- 
gregational and  pubhc  duties, — in  a  practical  interest,  and  to  meet 
a  great  emergency, — these  lectures  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  a 
hurried  effort  in  the  spirit  of  panic  to  denounce  what  cannot  be 
disproved. 

As  an  outside  spectator  the  writer  has  been  cognisant  of  every 
phase  of  the  critical  movement  in  Scotland.  A  class-fellow  for 
a  single  year  of  the  late  Professor  Robertson  Smith  in  Aberdeen 
University,  and  brought,  through  possession  of  the  same  surname, 
into  daily  contact  with  him  on  the  same  bench,  the  writer  was 
pre-disposed  by  admiration  for  one  who  was  even  then  a  great 
scholar,  to  take  his  standpoint.  William  Robertson  Smith  went 
forward  to  an  early  fame,  which  fascinated  those  who  looked  up 


vi  PREFACE 

to  him  from  lowly  fields  of  service.  Even  at  the  beginning, 
however,  the  conviction  that  the  startling  phenomenon  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  was  a  new  departure,  from  which  there  was 
no  safe  issue  but  in  return,  took  full  possession  of  the  writer's 
mind.  And  as  events  developed,  the  instinctive  judgment 
became  a  reasoned  belief. 

The  reader  may  catch  here  and  there  a  tone  of  severity  which 
we  would  not  have  him  misjudge.  The  writer  takes  a  very 
serious  view  of  the  effects  upon  not  a  few  of  our  younger 
ministers,  upon  intelligent  laymen,  and  our  people  generally,  of 
destructive  criticism.  And  he  cannot  hold  free  from  blame  those 
who,  however  far  from  intending  it,  have  used  the  prominent 
position  to  which  they  have  been  raised  by  the  Church,  to  divide 
believers,  paralyse  the  faith  of  many,  and  strengthen  the  hands  of 
our  enemies,  who  are  seeking  to  break  down  respect  for  revealed 
religion  in  the  land.  Such  severity  is  perfectly  compatible  with 
an  entire  absence  of  personal  feeling,  yea,  with  true  admiration 
for  many  admirable  qualities  in  those  whom  he  opposes. 
Nothing  was  further  from  the  writer's  thoughts  than  to  under- 
take this  labour,  if  others  more  able  had  only  stepped  into  the 
breach.  He  looked  for  such  until  the  silence  grew  painful  and 
ominous. 

May  he,  with  the  utmost  humility,  affirm  that  he  has  been 
conscious  of  a  constraint  which  he  dare  not  resist,  and  such  a 
comfortable  presence  of  the  enlightening  Spirit  as  made  toil 
light.  He  has  been  much  helped  by  his  friend  Rev.  G.  G.  Moore, 
who  superintended  the  serial  publication  in  a  religious  journal, 
and  desires  to  express  indebtedness  to  those  who  have  cheered 
him  in  his  solitary  task  by  warm  but  discriminating  sympathy. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  ....  i 

Luke  i.  I :    "  Those  things  which  are  most  surely 
believed  among  us. " 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  UNBROKEN   AND    GROWING    STRENGTH    OF 

THE   TRADITIONAL   VIEW  ...  34 

John  X.  35  :  "The  Scripture  cannot  be  broken." 

CHAPTER  III 

IS  THE   CRITICAL   HYPOTHESIS   VALID?     CHRIST 

AND  CRITICISM  .....  72 

John  V.  39:  "  They  are  they  which  testify  of  Me." 

CHAPTER  IV 

OBJECTIONS  TO  THE    DISINTEGRATING    PROCESS  109 

Matt.  xxi.  44:   *'  But  on  whomsoever  it  shall  fall,  it 
will  grind  him  to  powder." 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  SCRIPTURE 
INADEQUATE  AND  IMPROBABLE 

Psa.  cxix.  80:   "Let  my  heart  be  sound  in  Thy 
statutes,  that  I  be  not  ashamed." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    RIGHTS    OF    REVELATION    AT   THE    HANDS 

OF  CRITICISM  .  .  .  .  193 

Rev.  xix.  10:   "The  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit 
of  prophecy." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  TRUE  ORDER  AND  PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW 

HISTORY  ......  236 

Psalm  xii.  6:  "The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure 
words :  as  silver  tried  in  a  furnace  of  earth,  purified 
seven  times." 


MODERN    CRITICISM    AND   THE    PREACHING    OF 

THE   OLD   TESTAMENT       .  .  .  .  279 


THE   SEARCHING   ISSUES 

Luke  i.  I  :    "  Those^things  which  are  most  surely  believed  among  us." 

It  is  with  no  light  heart,  nor  without  serious 
searching  of  mind  as  to  our  personal  fitness  for 
this  duty,  that,  for  all  whom  we  can  influence,  we 
take  up  the  challenge  which  has  been  thrown 
down,  to  show  cause  why  we  should  not  accept 
the  conclusions  of  the  Higher  Criticism,  and  in- 
corporate them,  with  the  modifications  thereby 
incurred,  in  the  substance  of  our  faith.  From 
the  start  we  make  no  doubt  as  to  what  the 
answer  of  the  Church  should  be.  These  con- 
clusions ARE  INADMISSIBLE ;  inherently,  because 
of  objections  which  may  be  taken  to  them  and  to 
the  considerations  on  which  they  are  based.  And, 
such  as  they  are,  they  conflict  with  the  pro- 
foundest  certitudes  of  the  faith,  must  inevitably 
alter  the  foundations  on  which  from  the  beginning 
our  holy  religion  has  stood  before  the  world,  and, 
consequently,  so  far  as  a  theory  can,  must  obstruct 
her  mission  and  abridge  her  influence. 

Not  without  much  careful  weighing  of  a  per- 
plexed   situation    have    we    assumed    this,    to    us. 


2       THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

foreign  and  untried  task.  Vast  and  searching 
though  the  issues  may  be  which  are  involved  in 
this  impending  controversy  (for  one  side  having 
settled  the  conclusions  by  which  it  elects  to 
stand,  the  controversy  has  only  begun),  we  are 
of  opinion  that,  in  fairness  to  all,  this  is  no  time 
for  hurried  prosecutions  in  the  courts  of  the 
Church.  What  is  called  for  rather  is  a  frank 
and  free  discussion  in  the  open,  until  the  case 
from  the  side  of  theology  and  religion,  which,  in 
any  serious  sense,  is  practically  unwrought,  be 
as  fully  and  unambiguously  put,  as  is  now  the 
case  on  the  side  of  criticism.  Partisan  decisions, 
before  men  fully  see  the  length  and  breadth  of 
what  they  are  committing  themselves  to,  are 
infinitely  to  be  deplored.  Such  a  situation  has 
not  emerged  without  the  permission  of  Eternal 
Providence,  who,  through  the  conflicts  of  men, 
has  again  and  again  carried  us  into  possession  of 
our  most  precious  truths.  Let  us  then,  without 
panic,  in  faith  and  spiritua  courage,  apply  our- 
selves to  the  matters  involved  in  this  particular 
controversy,  each  making  bold  to  utter  the  con- 
victions wrought  in  him ;  and  while  we  may  have 
to  come,  as  I  believe  we  shall,  to  sharp  contrast 
and  a  parting  of  the  ways,  we  shall  have  acquitted 
ourselves  worthily  in  an  arduous  conflict. 

But  we  have  another  reason  for  suggesting  this 
course.     If  the  higher  critics,  whom  the  Church 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  3 

has  preferred  to  positions  of  trust,  have  lying  on 
them  their  own  responsibility,  in  that  they  have 
not  only  committed  themselves  to  the  critical 
positions  before  the  country  (so  far  implicating 
the  Church,  to  her  present  distress),  but  taught 
them  to  successive  classes  of  students,  our  beloved 
United  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  in  both  the 
branches  of  which  she  is  now  happily  composed, 
has  her  own  burden,  of  which  she  cannot  divest 
herself.  1  For  twenty  years,  more  or  less,  she  has 
tacitly  permitted  this  teaching  in  her  colleges. 
She  forbore  to  repress  inquiry.  In  other  words, 
she  remained  silent,  in  the  hope  that  this  line  of 
teaching  might  prove  fruitful  in  some  direction, 
and  not  inconsistent  with  her  creed.  Now,  then, 
that  conclusions  have  been  reached,  which,  in  the 
judgment  of  a  great  number  of  our  ministers,  and 
to  the  shrewd  commonsense  of  our  people,  are 
inconsistent  with  those  views  of  the  authority  and 
inspiration  of  Scripture  which  are  central  to  our 
whole  system,  the  Church  has  something  else  to 
do  than  straight  away  pass  to  judgment.  We 
should  be  slow  to  make  examples  of  individuals 
who  have,  mayhap,  too  sharply  defined  what  has 
been  floating  in  surmise  and  half  conviction,  and 
as  a  tacit  working  theory,  in  a  multitude  of  minds. 

1  We  have  permitted  this  paragraph  with  its  special  reference  to 
Scotland  to  remain,  because  it  reflects  more  or  less  accurately  the 
condition   of  things  in   many   other  Churches. 


4       THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

This  matter  cannot  be  fully  and  finally  dealt  with 
until,  from  the  side  of  the  Church  as  well  as  from 
the  side  of  criticism,  the  real  issues  are  thoroughly 
worked  out.  Those  who  somewhat  unseasonably 
have  been  pushing  the  battle  to  the  gate  have 
apparently  no  idea  of  the  concern  and  revulsion  of 
vast  numbers,  who  are  hving  in  the  daily  fellow- 
ship of  Christ,  from  their  conclusions.  Without 
being  able  to  state  their  reasons,  these  people 
stand  rootedly  and  immovably  convinced  that  what 
is  at  stake  is  the  reality  or  unreality,  of  what  has 
hitherto  been  known  and  believed  as  the  revelation 
of  God.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  take  time,  and 
state  plainly  the  true  ground  and  rational  extent 
of  that  conviction  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  many  profess,  on  very 
various  levels  of  assurance,  their  unconcern  as  to 
the  consequences  of  adopting  the  newer  criticism ; 
and  yet  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  they  have  not 
related  these  conclusions  to  the  sum  of  their 
Christian  beliefs.  This  is  now  a  great,  wide- 
ranging  controversy.  Few  men  can  keep  all  the 
elements  of  a  complex  problem  in  their  minds, 
and  cast  a  true  balance  from  the  conflicting  con- 
siderations presented  to  them.  One  is  fascinated 
by  one  aspect,  another  by  another,  for  the  sake  of 
which  they  adhere  to  the  standpoint  of  the  general 
theory,  to  find,  mayhap,  that  they  are  in  logical 
consistency  committed  to  consequences  which  they 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  5 

abhor.  Again,  we  affirm  that  we  are  called  as 
Christian  people  to  a  frank  discussion  of  ^11  the 
elements  entering  into  this  subject,  theological  and 
religious,  no  less  than  literary  and  historical,  so 
that  if  come  to  a  conflict  we  must,  the  issues  may 
be  unambiguous,  and  combatants  on  either  side 
may  know  where  they  stand. 

Permit  one  other  preliminary  point.  Many  will 
be  disposed  to  ask,  why  bring  so  involved  and 
difficult  a  question  before  the  people?  Because 
the  issue  directly  affects  the  people.  The  Bible 
is  the  heritage  of  the  people,  the  spring  of  their 
personal  religion,  and  the  foundation  of  Christian 
fellowship  and  Church  authority.  They  may  not 
be  able  to  follow  critical  processes;  their  judgments, 
being  untrained,  may  be  of  little  worth  regarding 
the  pros  and  cons  of  critical  evidence.  But  when 
the  critics  have  committed  themselves  to  a  view  of 
how  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  came  to  be — 
especially  a  hypothetical  view,  whose  only  validity 
must  lie  in  its  answering  to  all  the  facts — the 
common  judgment  can  settle,  yea,  will  have  to 
settle,  whether  that  can  be  regarded  as  an  adequate 
or  probable  explanation. 

And  now  to  bring  things  to  a  point,  allow  us 
without  further  preliminaries  to  raise  the  searching 
issues  as  between  the  self-witness  of  Revelation 
coming  down  to  us  from  remote  centuries,  and  the 
modern  critical   view,    which,    originating    in    last 


6       THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

century,  has  risen  to  such  a  head  within  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  not  only  in  Germany,  but  in 
Britain  and  America.  And  here,  of  course,  we 
must  follow  our  own  method,  looking  first  at  the 

SELF-WITNESS    OF    REVELATION,    and    then    at    THE 

CRITICAL  HYPOTHESIS  in  relation  thereto. 

With  the  critics  their  theory  has  been  the  first 
consideration,  the  perfecting  of  their  hypothetical 
explanation  of  how  Scripture  was  actually  built 
up.  And  they  have  not  hesitated  to  cut  and 
carve,  to  excise  and  insert  —  indeed,  to  break 
down  and  build  up  the  existing  literature  in 
harmony  with  their  view,  in  a  manner  and  to  a 
degree  that  have  no  parallel.  We  begin,  however, 
with  the  things  which  are  most  surely  believed 
among  us,  with  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  matter  of 
present  experience,  as  built  up  by  the  action  of 
unseen  forces  ;  and  as  proving  through  renewed 
and  sanctified  characters  the  central  force  of  time. 
The  literature  which  is  matter  of  investigation  is  a 
literature  that  is,  in  a  sense,  living,  the  soul  and 
quality  of  which  are  perpetuating  themselves  in  a 
spiritual  kingdom. 

A  word  is  what  it  does.  Whether  we  know 
much  about  how  it  came  to  be  written,  or  whether 
we  know  little,  any  collection  of  words — a  book,  a 
volume  of  Scriptures — is  to  be  judged  in  respect 
of  source  and  quality,  and  illumination,  and  power, 
by  actual  result  on   the   lives  of  men.     Well,   in 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  7 

the  living  kingdom  of  God  to-day  we  have 
millions  in  many  lands  and  on  all  social  levels,  and 
among  them  the  purest  characters  and  the  most 
active  and  progressive  intellects,  who  are  unanimous 
in  this,  that  in  and  through  this  literature  they 
have  been  brought  into  personal  contact  with 
God,  and  that  by  His  spirit  God  has  come  into 
them,  creating  them  anew,  and  dwelling  in  them. 
In  proof  of  this  one  might  cite  the  Christian 
creeds,  which  formulate  the  convictions  of  the 
churches,  but  we  prefer  to  cite  the  hymns  which 
utter  their  living  faith. 

Here,  then,  is  a  kingdom  set  up  in  this  world, 
of  which,  taken  on  its  own  unchanging  testimony, 
this  is  the  character.  It  moves  from  within  by 
forces  perpetually  flowing  out  from  the  unseen, 
each  unit  selected  by  a  Divine  call,  renewed  by 
a  Divine  spirit,  sustained  by  the  interactions  of  a 
Divine  life.  All  its  activities  show  that  it  leans 
on  resources  from  beyond,  prayer  imploring  the 
eternal  succours,  faith  receiving,  love  making 
return  for  heavenly  dowers  received. 

The  living  root  of  this  kingdom,  the  channel 
through  which  light  comes,  the  basis  on  which 
God  and  man  meet,  is  the  Holy  Scriptures.  And 
when  we  come  to  these,  and  more  especially  to 
the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  the  living  source 
wholly  answers  to  these  effects.  As  a  radiant 
cloud  by  the  sun,  they  are  interpenetrated  by  the 


8       THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

consciousness  that  they  contain  and  are  a  com- 
munication from  God  to  men,  made  in  historic 
time,  having  for  end  the  setting  up  of  a  Kingdom 
of  God,  in  which,  uniting  the  created  into  fellow- 
ship with  the  uncreated,  the  eternal  purpose  of 
God  shall  be  completed.  No  proofs  need  to  be 
led.  The  fact  is  so  palpable.  Hear  one  word 
of  Christ:  "The  only  begotten  Son,  who  is  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  declared  Him." 
Note  how  Paul,  in  many  places  of  his  Epistles,  is 
almost  carried  out  of  himself  by  the  fact  that  the 
mystery  hid  from  ages  is  now  made  manifest. 

But  there  is  another  consciousness  penetrating 
the  New  Testament  Revelation — that  this  com- 
munication of  God  does  not  stand  alone.  In 
fragmentary  words  and  less  perfect  forms,  this 
same  God  had  in  earlier  ages  discovered  Himself, 
establishing  relations  between  Israel  and  Himself, 
and  from  the  nucleus  of  covenant  promise  starting 
and  controlling  covenant  history.  The  New 
Testament  is  unanimous  in  all  parts  about  this. 
Paul  sees  in  the  covenant  of  God  with  Abraham 
the  pivot  of  the  whole  movement  through  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments ;  and  in  the  dispensa- 
tion of  law  under  Moses  a  necessary  discipline 
of  the  covenant  people.  And  while,  Hke  the 
writers  of  Scripture  who  speak  of  weak  and 
beggarly  elements,  Christ  discerns  what  was  pro- 
visional, and,  as   adjusted   to  infantile  perception. 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  9 

beneath  the  full  height  and  range  of  Revelation, 
yet  no  servant  of  His  has  shown  with  such  grand 
decisiveness  as  He  has  done  His  belief  that  the 
Old  Testament  was  an  integral  part  of  God's 
self-revelation,  despite  all  deciduous  elements, 
inherently  one  and  on  the  same  plane  with  all 
further  developments  of  Revelation.  "I  am  not 
come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil."  "One  jot  or  one 
tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be 
fulfilled."! 

Inherent  in  Revelation  then  there  is  a  self- 
witness.  The  latest  portion  points  to  the  be- 
ginning; the  beginning,  with  all  that  may  be 
limited  and  provisional,  contains  the  germ  of  the 
end.  God's  discovery  of  Himself,  as  we  might 
expect,  is  not  an  episode,  but  rooted  in  a  vast 
breadth  of  the  world's  life,  intertwined  with  human 
history,  and  growing  from  less  to  more,  as  in  this 
Divine  education  and  discipline,  man  became 
capable  of  receiving  the  full  self-unveiling  of  God. 
In  the  history  of  ideas  we  have  impressive  examples 
of  how  from  fragments  of  thought  a  great  rounded 
system  like  for  instance  that  of  Platonism  developed, 
filling  the  prospect  for  a  while,  then  giving  place  to 
other  systems,  and  living  on  as  an  influence  permeat- 
ing other  thought,  but  at  last  reappearing  in  the 
sharpened  and  accentuated  form  of  Neo-Platonism. 
Those  who  study  such  subjects  lay  great  stress  on 

1  Matthew  v.   17,   18. 


lo     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  continuity  and  coherence  of  ideas.  The  con- 
nection which  they  seek  to  estabhsh  is  an  inner 
connection  of  thought,  and  they  are  content  with 
a  slender  basis  of  external  fact. 

In  the  Scriptures  we  have  to  do  with  an  in- 
ternal coherence  of  thought,  but  on  a  higher  plane. 
What  we  find  in  relation  are  creative  thoughts  of 
God,  or  rather  discoveries  of  His  positive  purposes 
for  men.  In  each  case  He  meets  men  on  their 
level,  in  the  line  of  ideas  fermenting  in  their  own 
minds.  When  they  have  exhausted  the  content 
of  this  creative  thought,  or  lost  by  unbelief  their 
chance  of  realising  it,  again,  in  closest  contact  with 
the  actual  condition  of  the  nation,  God  discovers 
Himself  in  a  great  counsel  of  mercy,  on  a  totally 
different  plane,  and  within  original  horizons.  And 
anew  the  history  moves  on  under  the  impact  of 
these  great  ideas,  until  human  sin  causes  the  nation 
to  swerve  round  from  the  line  of  God's  will,  and 
involves  in  ruin  the  first  blossoming  of  national  Hfe 
in  God.  Then  there  broke  amid  the  ruins,  through 
the  prophets,  a  richer  consciousness  of  God,  and  a 
glorious  flourish  of  new  ideals,  which  His  truth 
and  love  guaranteed.  And  lastly,  across  many 
centuries,  in  a  way  utterly  unlooked  for,  these 
ideals  were  reahsed  in  Christ,  and  the  full  purpose 
of  God  stood  revealed. 

You  understand,  we  are  simply  describing  the  self- 
witness  of  revelation  as  it  lies  in  our  hands,  without 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  ii 

settling  for  the  present  whether  it  is  to  be  received 
or  not.  Here  was  a  history,  not  merely  of  ideas, 
but  of  Divine  creative  purposes,  stretching  over 
far  more  than  a  thousand  years,  breathing  a  spirit 
in  utter  contrast  to  that  of  the  world,  and  discover- 
ing a  unity  of  Divine  design,  now  that  we  see  the 
goal,  not  only  beyond  the  foresight  of  man,  but  in 
height  and  range  superhuman. 

For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  Church  of  God 
has  consciously  lived  and  grown  great  within  the 
vast  dome  of  this  Divine  purpose,  discovered  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  thus  seen  to  be  one. 
In  another  place  we  have  said:  "The  Church  of 
Christ  has  entered  once  for  all  and  irrevocably 
into  that  conception  of  the  unity  of  Revelation,  as 
shown  by  the  unity  of  one  Divine  conscious  pur- 
pose passing  through  it.  Faith  having  once  seen 
this  can  never  unsee  it,  any  more  than  Science, 
having  grasped  the  Copernican  theory,  can  wink 
that  knowledge  away."  ^  As  every  object  in  nature 
— the  lichen  on  the  wall,  the  pine  on  the  hill-face 
— lies  under  the  eye  of  the  sun  within  the  dome 
of  heaven,  so  everything  in  this  Book  stood  trans- 
figured because  of  relation  to  God  and  the  evolu- 
tion of  His  purpose.  Living  within  this  unity  of 
Divine  aim,  the  Church  of  eighteen  centuries  has 
lived  on  this  Word.  Through  every  part  God's 
creative   thought   has   passed   into  her   testimony. 

^  "  Permanent  Message  of  the  Exodus  "  (preface). 


12     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

She  has  been  conscious  of  a  spirit  not  of  man 
making  every  nook  and  corner  hve,  and  bringing 
the  past  in  manifold  application  to  the  present. 
And  entering  into  the  lives  of  each  generation 
this  creative  thought  has  produced  a  type  of 
character  never  known  before,  bursting  all  common 
barriers  of  motive  and  aim,  as  a  well  reflects  the 
sky  reflecting  what  of  God  it  has  received,  His  will 
its  law,  the  service  of  man  its  business,  eternity  its 

goal.  ..." 

And  not  only  did  this  Revelation  with  its  all- 
embracing  conception  start,  but  all  along  it  has 
been  the  life  of  the  Kingdom.  After  ages  of 
decadence  and  growing  corruption  recurrence  to 
the  Word  by  A.ugustine,  Francis,  Savonarola, 
Luther,  Knox,  Wesley,  brought  in  each  case  a 
new  day.  The  proofs  of  what  it  is  are  discovered 
in  the  quality  of  its  effects,  written  upon  millions 
of  lives  and  their  social  and  public  activities  through 
generations.  Yea,  we  have  that  within  ourselves, 
witnessed  to  by  our  inmost  spirit,  which  argument 
or  speculation  cannot  touch,  as  to  the  character  of 
this  Book,  and  the  undeniable  verity  of  that  self- 
witness  written  broad  on  every  page. 

Such  is  Revelation,  realised  and  experienced 
from  within,  in  the  living  consciousness  of  millions 
of  the  human  race.  That  is  fact,  then,  resting  on 
a  breadth  of  foundation  in  spiritual  experience 
which  no  other  fact  comes  near.     And  no  other 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  13 

kind  of  fact  can  invalidate  that  result.  The  spiritual 
Revelation  stands  authenticated  by  spiritual  result 
on  a  range  and  of  a  kind  which  leaves  all  argu- 
ments and  discussions  of  the  schools  far  behind. 
Atheists  and  agnostics,  like  Clifford  and  Spencer, 
who  have  not  the  effect  may  deny  the  cause, 
and  try  to  explain  the  universe  without  any  room 
or  place  for  the  spiritual.  But  religion  is  so  rooted 
in  literature  and  life  that  what  they  expose  is  their 
own  bias,  what  they  discount  their  halting  judgment. 
The  sun  does  not  apologise  for  its  existence.  And 
what  we  have  to  do  is  not  to  trim  and  palter  with 
facts,  but  assert  our  full  consciousness  and  put 
forth  the  full  energy  of  the  spiritual,  leaving  the 
facts  to  tell. 

But  coming  now  to  the  second  part,  if  such  be 
the  self-witness  of  Revelation,  how  has  there  grown 
up  this  vast  movement  of  criticism,  and  especially 
those  conclusions  adverse  to  the  historic  truth  of 
large  portions  of  Scripture,  which  are  filling  multi- 
tudes with  dismay  ?  More  particularly,  how  have 
these  movements  arisen  within  the  Church,  and  by 
the  efforts  of  men  who  show  that  they  have  a 
real  reverence  for  Christ,  and  an  appreciation  of 
spiritual  truth  ?  To  multitudes  this  is  a  baffling 
mystery,  and  source  of  most  serious  concern. 
Their  very  respect  for  these  teachers  on  other 
grounds,  and  for  the  position  which  they  occupy, 
makes  them  fear  that  there  must  be  far  more  in  it 


14     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

than  they  can  understand,  and  that,  at  any  moment, 
a  mine  may  explode  beneath  their  feet  involving 
them  in  the  ruins  of  faith. 

Now  we  must  begin  by  saying  frankly  that 
there  is  a  necessary  place  for  criticism.  Revelation, 
if  we  may  say  so,  has  a  body  as  well  as  a  soul.  It 
grew  up  in  time,  within  certain  historical  conditions, 
was  written  by  persons,  situated  in  certain  positions 
and  having  undergone  such  and  such  discipline  for 
the  work.  And  here  the  appeal  must  be  to  fact, 
internal  and  external,  everything  being  welcomed 
which  really  throws  light  on  the  situation.  Pro- 
testantism stands  on  truth,  and  does  not  invoke 
authority  to  crush  inconvenient  questionings.  She 
is  willing  to  face  investigation  from  whatever 
quarter  it  comes.  For  instance,  in  our  present 
humble  inquiry  we  are  not  inveighing  against 
criticism.  Neither  do  we  pretend  that  we  have 
cut-and-dry  answers  to  all  critical  questions,  and 
solutions  of  all  actual  and  imaginary  difficulties. 
Criticism  must  proceed.  We  lay  no  embargo  on 
human  research.  All  that  we  affirm  is,  that  this 
particular  theory  or  hypothesis  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  came  to  be 
formed  does  not  meet  the  case,  is  purely  speculative, 
improbable,  marked  by  internal  incoherences,  and 
therefore  should  be  dismissed. 

One  further  remark  regarding  criticism  in  general 
is  demanded.     We  have  said  criticism  has  its  place ; 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  15 

but  that  is  a  very  limited  place.  As  we  see,  in 
relation  to  the  New  Testament,  its  function  is, 
from  external  data,  to  settle  questions  of  time, 
place,  authorship — a  useful  and  necessary,  if  some- 
what limited  role,  lying  out  of  the  world's  eye,  and 
only  when  a  genius  once  in  a  hundred  years  makes 
some  notable,  discovery,  winning  popular  applause. 
The  Scriptures  themselves  make  appeal  to  another 
than  the  critical  sense.  They  address  that  in  man 
which  fronts  God.  By  what  they  discover  to  the 
human  soul  on  that  plane,  by  what  they  work  in 
and  through  human  life  are  they  to  be  judged. 
For  that  kind  of  result  the  critic  has  no  test  which 
the  spiritual  man  does  not  equally  possess.  And 
if,  going  beyond  his  province,  where  alone  he  is 
to  be  listened  to  as  an  expert,  he  interferes  with 
the  substance  of  revelation,  presuming  to  dis- 
integrate what  has  stood  as  a  religious  unity  for 
thousands  of  years,  with  only  the  light  reeds  of 
his  critical  suppositions,  he  may  find  himself  in- 
volved in  conflict  with  a  force  which,  in  comparison, 
is  like  an  avalanche  to  an  aspen — the  continuous 
consciousness  of  the  Christian  centuries,  and  what 
God  has  discovered  of  His  eternal  counsel  to 
millions  in  our  own  day. 

We  have  made  these  remarks  because  we 
believe  they  apply  with  peculiar  force  to  the 
movement  which  has  coined  the  name  "  Higher 
Criticism "  to    cover    the    wider    scope    which    it 


1 6     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

demands  for  its  methods.  We  are  quite  willing 
to  give  criticism  all  the  scope  which  it  can  prove 
itself  able  to  occupy,  with  those  literary,  linguistic, 
and  historical  tests  which  are  its  stock-in-trade. 
But  even  though  we  are  not  able  to  follow  the 
critics  in  all  their  subtle  discriminations  and  weigh- 
ings of  evidence,  we  are  not  bhndly  to  take  their 
verdict  until  we  have  seen  with  what  presuppositions 
they  have  worked,  the  general  views  to  which  they 
have  referred  particular  judgments,  the  standards 
by  which  they  have  tested  fact  and  fiction,  and 
what  has  been  their  ground  conception  of  the 
course  that  events  pursued. 

Now,  here,  we  are  carried  into  the  heart  of  the 
situation  with  which  in  these  seven  chapters  we 
have  to  deal.  "The  whirligig  of  time  brings 
about  its  revenges."  Time  gives  all  its  favours  to 
the  new  men  and  the  new  theories.  They  have 
only  to  come  in  as  chartered  libertines,  expose 
faults,  throw  new  lights,  disintegrate,  reconstruct. 
By-and-by  the  new  criticism  completes  its  scheme, 
lays  down  its  main  position,  and  the  stream  of  time 
flows  on  to  new  shores.  Already,  although  the 
critics  do  not  like  to  think  such  a  thing,  this  higher 
criticism  belongs  to  the  past,  or  at  least  the  passing. 
We  can  trace  the  relations  of  this  to  other  theories 
of  a  vanishing  generation,  from  which  we  have 
moved  forward.  The  very  grounds  in  current 
speculation  on  which  they  rested  have  shifted,  and. 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  17 

within  new  horizons  of  thought  and  belief,  are  we 
called  definitely  to  weigh  its  claims. 

We  have  all  been  struck  with  the  immense 
difference  of  tone  between  the  address  of  the 
President  of  the  British  Association  in  Glasgow 
this  year,  and  the  flamboyant  utterance  of  the 
late  Prof  Tyndall  at  Belfast  in  1874.  The  latter 
told  us  with  one  bold  sweep,  that  the  promise  and 
potency  of  all  existence  lay  latent  in  a  fiery  cloud. 
Religion,  conscience,  mind,  life,  matter,  all  came 
from  that  whirling  orb.  How  different,  how  timid 
and  apologetic  the  plea  of  the  present  chosen 
representative  of  British  science,  even  for  such 
familiar  pre-requisites  of  a  material  universe  as 
atoms  and  ether  !  That  is  a  symbol  of  a  wide- 
reaching  change.  We  are  not  so  sure  of  those 
wide  generalisations.  We  have  not  the  same 
delight  as  those  men  of  an  earlier  day,  in  supposing 
that,  by  long  processes  of  development,  we  can  get 
out  of  the  conclusion,  what  we  did  not  put  into 
the  premises.  In  biology,  psychology,  morals,  the 
science  of  religion,  and  in  other  directions  the 
school  of  thorough-paced  material  evolution  has 
received  the  shrewdest  blows ;  and  to  that  general 
movement  of  speculation  this  critical  theory  belongs 
— with  exceptions,  rather  apparent  than  real,  to  be 
afterward  noted. 

Let  us  now,  in  the  most  succinct  fashion, 
describe    this    critical    theory,    confining  ourselves 


i8     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

rather  to  the  features  which  are  common  to  the 
school  than  to  individual  varieties  of  opinion.  In 
studying  any  movement  the  great  thing  is  to  find 
the  organic  principle  which  underlies  and  animates 
the  whole.  We  shall  begin,  then,  with  the  two 
writers  who  gave  the  Higher  Criticism  European 
vogue,  and  who,  in  unequal  measure  it  is  true, 
inspired  those  who  have  imported  it  as  a  living 
issue  into  the  heart  of  British  Christianity. 

One  cannot  travel  far,  then,  into  Kuenen's 
''The  Religion  of  Israel  "  and  Wellhausen's  writings 
before  finding  that  these  critics  are  not  engaged  in 
a  purely  scientific  inquiry  into  such  facts  as  might 
throw  light  on  the  literary  origins  of  Old  Testament 
Scripture.  They  are  engaged  in  something  much 
more  speculative  and  ambitious — to  reconstruct,  on 
a  naturalistic  basis,  both  history  and  literature. 
In  other  words,  the  books  are  to  be  stretched  on 
the  Procrustes  bed  of  a  theory  which,  to  begin 
with,  allows  no  direct  action  to  the  supernatural, 
and  presupposes  that  in  Israel,  religion  grew  up 
from  the  same  beginnings  and  through  the  same 
stages  as  in  all  other  nations,  although  reaching 
higher  than  others  at  the  goal. 

Hear  Kuenen,  who  has  the  merits  of  lucidity 
and  frankness  :  "  The  representation  of  Israel's 
earliest  history  presented  to  us  in  the  books  named 
after  Moses  and  Joshua  must  be  rejected  as,  in  its 
entirety,  impossible"  (p.  22,  vol.  i.).      "The  Old 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  19 

Testament  narratives  of  Israel's  earliest  fortunes 
are  entirely  upon  a  par  with  the  accounts  which 
X)Xher  nations  have  handed  down  to  us  concerning 
their  earlier  history.  Their  principal  element  is 
legend"  (p.  22).  In  finding  out  what  the  real 
course  of  the  history  was  he  tells  us  that  conjecture 
or  divination  plays  an  important  part.  "  We  offer, 
for  instance,  a  supposition  with  respect  to  the 
Mosaic  period :  on  the  strength  of  various  indica- 
tions we  assume  that  the  people  of  Israel  and  the 
man  who  had  delivered  them  out  of  their  bondage 
in  Egypt,  had  reached  such  and  such  a  degree  of 
religious  development  "  (p.  26).  And  then,  as  he 
goes  on  to  say,  he  looks  for  confirmation  of  this 
supposition  to  what  comes  after.  But  he  con- 
descends still  further  as  to  his  method  at  a  later 
stage.  Assuming  as  incontrovertible  fact  a  theory 
of  the  growth  of  religion  which  is  already  seri- 
ously shaken,  he  says  later  in  the  same  volume  : 
"To  what  one  might  call  the  universal,  or,  at 
least,  the  common  rule,  that  religion  begins  with 
fetishism,  then  develops  into  polytheism,  and  then, 
but  not  before,  ascends  to  monotheism  .  .  .  the 
Semites  are  no  exception  "  (p.  225,  vol.  i.). 

The  teaching  of  Wellhausen,  if  somewhat 
differently  expressed,  is  not  dissimilar.  We  quote  his 
article  on  Israel  in  "  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  " 
as  being  most  within  reach.  He,  as  entirely  as 
Kuenen,  refuses  to  accept  the  Old  Testament  account 


20     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

of  itself.  "  For  Moses  to  have  given  the  Israehtes 
an  enlightened  conception  of  God  would  have  been 
to  have  given  them  a  stone  instead  of  bread."  As 
to  the  essential  nature  of  God,  "  he  allowed  them 
to  continue  in  the  same  way  of  thinking  with  their 
fathers."  "We  cannot  treat  the  legislative  por- 
tions of  the  Pentateuch  as  a  source  from  which 
our  knowledge  of  what  Mosaism  really  was  can  be 
derived."  ''  It  cannot  in  any  sense  be  regarded  as 
the  starting-point  of  the  subsequent  development  " 
— thus  denying  directly  the  Old  Testament's  claim 
for  itself  "  The  Torah — i.e.  the  Law,  consisted 
entirely  of  the  oral  decisions  and  instructions  of 
the  priests."  Moses  was  not  "the  promulgator 
once  for  all  of  a  national  constitution,"  but  was  the 
first  "to  begin  the  series  of  oral  decisions  which 
were  continued  after  him  by  the  priests."  "The 
giving  of  the  Law  at  Sinai  has  only  a  formal,  not 
to  say  dramatic,  significance."  "  For  the  sake  of 
producing  a  solemn  and  vivid  impression,  that  is 
represented  as  having  taken  place  in  a  single 
thrilling  moment  which  in  reality  occurred  slowly 
and  almost  unobserved."  Even  the  Decalogue  in 
its  pronounced'  monotheism  "  could  not  have 
formed  the  foundation  of  the  national  religion. 
It  was  first  developed  out  of  the  national  religion 
at  the  downfall  of  the  nation,  and  thereupon  kept 
its  hold  upon  the  people  in  an  artificial  manner  by 
means  of  the  idea  of  a  covenant  formed   by  the 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  21 

God  of  the  Universe  with,  in   the  first  instance, 
Israel  alone." 

Now,  while  we  do  not  for  a  moment  deny  the 
great  talent  and  wide  resources  of  these  teachers, 
nor  of  Ewald  and  many  others  who  might  be 
named,  yet  that  cannot  hide  from  us  the  subjective 
character  of  this  criticism.  Bacon  in  his  immortal 
maxim  tells  us  that  man  can  know  no  more  than 
what  he  observes.  In  no  field  of  existence  do  we 
find  stubborn  facts  falling  into  the  line  of  our 
suppositions.  We  must  conform  ourselves  to  the 
objective  reality,  and  form  our  theory  out  of  the 
facts.  An  inquiry  so  surrounded  by  presupposi- 
tions, and  limited  and  deflected  by  private  rulings 
as  to  probability,  is  handicapped  from  the  start. 
A  strong  effort  is  being  made  to  create  the  im- 
pression that  criticism  has  nothing  to  do  with 
theory,  but  in  vain.  Even  those  who  stick  to 
linguistic  details,  start  from  certain  premises  and 
work  to  certain  conclusions  which  are  those  of 
the  theory.  This  we  shall  prove  in  the  third 
chapter. 

But,  someone  may  say,  the  criticism  with  which 
we  have  to  deal,  while  it  reconstructs  Old  Testa- 
ment Scripture  according  to  the  general  conception 
we  have  been  describing,  distinctly  recognises  a 
profoundly  religious  element  in  the  various  parts. 
Yea,  in  the  volume  which  has  aroused  the  con- 
troversy   now    beginning    in    Scotland    Professor 


22     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

George   Adam   Smith    expresses    his   firm   belief, 
that  in  the  rehgion  of  Israel  as  recorded  in  the 
Old  Testament  there  was  an  authentic  revelation 
of  the  One  True  God.      And  this  is  being  quoted 
by  many  as  sufficient  ground  for  reassurance,  and 
an   end  of  all   debate.     So   far   as   his   theory  is 
concerned,     however,    it     introduces    a    profound 
inconsistency,  and  multiplies  his  difficulties  tenfold. 
Be  it  noted,  like  all  the  other  critics,  he  rejects 
without  discussion  the  belief  of  eighteen  centuries, 
that,   Hke   the  New  Testament,   the   Old    Testa- 
ment dispensation   begins  with  the    revelation   of 
a  Divine  purpose  to  Israel  through  Moses,  which 
controls  the  whole  subsequent  development.    That 
is  ruled  out  as  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment. 
Israel's    history    must    have    followed    the    same 
general  lines  as  those  of  other  nations.     The  early 
history  is  dissipated  into  myth  or    legend.     The 
stories   of  the  Hebrew   Patriarchs   are    effiDrts   to 
account  for  the  geographical  distribution  of  neigh- 
bouring   nations — there    being,    perhaps,    a    sub- 
stratum of  personal  fact  in  the  case  of  Abraham. 
The  historic  reality  of  Moses  is  allowed,  but  what 
residuum  of  contemporary  tradition  remains  after 
the   disintegration   of   the    Pentateuch   is   left   in 
profound  uncertainty.     We  do  not  emerge  on  his- 
toric ground  till  we  reach  the  times  of  Samuel.    All 
through  the  centuries   which   followed,    the    Jew 
was    pretty   much    on    a    level    with    surrounding 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  23 

nations.  Even  to  the  verge  of  the  prophetic  age, 
his  rehgion  was  polytheism  with  an  opening  to 
monotheism.  And  then,  when  the  Prophets  had 
heightened  and  widened  the  conception  of  Jehovah, 
unknown  writers — "redactors"  as  they  are  called 
— embodying  what  fragments  of  law  and  tradition 
had  come  down  to  them,  produced  an  idealised 
picture  of  their  national  beginnings  in  accordance 
with  the  purer  ideas  of  their  own  times,  but  from 
nine  to  eleven  hundred  years  later  than  the 
personages  and  events  which  they  describe.  And 
these,  being  pieced  together,  now  constitute  our 
Pentateuch.  In  other  words,  the  self-discovery 
of  God  to  Abraham  and  Moses,  His  miraculous 
acts  by  which  He  witnessed  to  His  presence.  His 
divine  counsel  as  an  articulated  whole.  His  re- 
lations with  His  people,  quick,  as  all  saints  have 
felt,  with  a  holy,  searching  spirit,  are  the  un- 
licensed imaginations  of  unknown  penmen,  trying 
to  glorify  the  crude  and  fragmentary  fact  of  remote 
tradition, — as  much  a  work  of  imagination  as 
Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King. 

And  when  they  have  desecrated  these  books 
containing  the  Mosaic  revelation,  and  disintegrated 
them  into  many  fragments,  in  order  to  satisfy  a  so- 
called  scientific  necessity  that  the  history  of  Israel 
should  conform  to  a  certain  order  of  progression 
which  it  was  presumed  all  other  nations  had 
followed ;   when,  after  all  that,  it  turns  out  that 


24     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

even  from  the  fragments  and  through  the  veils  of 
reported  myth  and  legend  there  breaks  a  spirit 
which  is  not  the  spirit  of  man,  and  gleams  of  a 
purpose  higher  than  ever  entered  into  human 
thought,  they  turn  round  and  say:  ''Here  is  an 
authentic  revelation  of  God." 

But  we  rejoin — this  is  for  you  a  new  factor. 
If  a  direct  personal  influence  of  God  had  any  place 
in  shaping  Israel's  history,  you  must  allow  for  it. 
That  impact  of  the  Divine  must  have  had  a  con- 
trolling influence  in  the  process,  if  we  are  to  allow 
it  in  the  result.  You  must  ask,  then,  if  you 
would  give  a  complete  view  of  how  the  religion 
and  literature  of  Israel  grew  up :  Have  we  any 
independent  testimony  how  God  acts  when  He 
comes  into  personal  contact  with  men.''  The 
answer  is  not  dubious.  As  we  see  in  the  New 
Testament,  God  comes  in  the  glory  of  a  complete 
revelation  which  creates  or  controls  the  dispensation. 
What,  then,  is  the  irresistible  inference  but  that 
God  did  the  same  in  Old  Testament  times  ?  Yet 
that  is  the  very  conception  which  our  critic  has,  to 
begin  with,  rejected. 

This  is  a  difl[iculty  from  which  there  is  no 
escape.  The  self-witness  of  Scripture  is  complete 
on  this  point.  Christ  and  Paul  bear  witness  to 
this  as  the  true  rationale  of  Old  Testament  his- 
tory. And  yet,  at  all  hazards,  the  critics  cling  to 
their  theory  of  the  natural  genesis  of  man  and  his 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  25 

religion,  and  embark  on  the  most  perilous  enter- 
prise which  we  can  conceive,  trying  to  imagine 
how,  according  to  their  theory,  and  without  miracle 
or  anything  exceptional,  God — the  same  God  who 
is  now  revealed  in  Christ  —  may  have  moved 
silently  into  Hebrew  life  and  Hterature,  informing 
legend,  lurking  amid  the  pollutions  of  a  remanent 
polytheism,  and  making  the  ideal  pictures  of  late 
unknown  writers  have  all  the  effect  of  primitive 
revelation.  That  is  not  science.  Scientific  men 
do  not  advance  by  moving  away  from  such  facts  as 
are  available,  and  imagining  a  succession  of  events 
for  which  there  is  no  independent  support.  But 
that  thought  is  blotted  out  by  the  sense  of  tower- 
ing presumption.  "  Who  can  by  searching  find 
out  God  ?  "  It  is  enough — more  than  enough  for 
man,  without  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost— even  to 
hear  Him  and  obey. 

Like  the  mingling  of  oil  and  water,  this  adding 
of  the  conception  of  revelation  to  the  critical  re- 
construction only  introduces  two  insoluble  elements, 
multiplying  the  difficulties  without  adding  to  the 
acceptability  of  the  theory.  For  such  a  conception 
of  revelation  cannot  be  brought  into  any  real 
relation  with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  revelation 
as  it  has  been  held  by  all  churches  of  the  saints. 
To  show  this,  one  incidental  reference  may  suffice, 
and  will  be  all  the  better  that  Professor  Smith 
recurs  to  it  again  and  again  as  something  on  which 


26     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

he  likes  to  dwell.  He  sees  the  Spirit  of  God 
breaking  out,  especially  in  such  utterances  of  the 
human  spirit  as  Deborah's  song  and  David's  dirge 
for  Jonathan.  Where  he  looks  for  God  is  not  in 
any  creative  act  or  word,  but  rising  silently  and 
unnoted  in  a  finer  ethical  spirit  than  what  obtains 
outside  Israel.  "  These  are  the  two  most  beauti- 
ful anticipations  which  the  Old  Testament  has  to 
offer  of  Christ's  teaching  :  But  I  say,  love  your 
enemies,"  &c.i 

In  comparison  with  these  the  Levitical  sacrifices 
are  animal  and  repulsive,  and  lead  to  representa- 
tions of  Christ's  death,  which  have  the  same 
character.  "  It  is  the  direst  blunder  which  a 
preacher  may  commit  to  dwell  upon  them."  2  Two 
views  of  revelation  lurk  in  these  contrasted  state- 
ments. If  God  in  very  deed,  according  to  the 
universal  Christian  belief,  have  discovered  himself 
in  a  counsel  of  mercy,  purposing  to  enter  into 
direct  personal  fellowship  with  men,  He  must 
appoint  the  conditions  through  which  we  can  come 
to  Him.  Only  He  can  know  all  that  is  necessary 
that  we  may  live  with  Him  on  His  plane.  He  has 
appointed  these  in  the  new  covenant ;  faith  in 
Christ,  surrender,  the  reception  of  the  Spirit, 
obedience  ;  and  only  by  observance  of  these  con- 
ditions can  we  enter  into  possession  of  eternal  life. 

1  Professor  G.  A.  Smith's  '<  Modern  Criticism,"  x.  p.  257. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  272. 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  27 

And  if,  by  an  act  of  historical  imagination  and 
spiritual  sympathy,  we  transported  ourselves  into 
the  place  of  the  Hebrews,  we  should  find  that, 
under  the  unsupportable  sense  of  God's  glory  in 
Sinai,  they  found  the  precepts  of  Leviticus  most 
welcome  provisions  by  which,  sin  taken  away,  they 
might  come  back  into  fellowship  with  God.  That 
is  no  breadth  of  view  which  sniffs  at  what  appears 
the  coarser  discipline  needed  in  a  rude  time.  If 
rather,  making  little  of  surface  appearances,  we 
put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  those  multitudes 
lately  redeemed  from  Egypt,  we  should  see  not 
only  the  most  subtle  correspondence  in  these 
sacrifices  with  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  but  the  pro- 
foundest  insight  into  the  human  spirit,  and  into  the 
conditions  necessary  for  moral  and  spiritual  emanci- 
^pation.  Granted  Sinai  and  Calvary,  these  pro- 
visions of  Leviticus  are  radiant  with  the  wisdom 
and  glory  of  God. 

In  our  view,  Deborah's  song  and  David's  dirge 
owe  their  ethical  quality  to  the  unique  fellowship 
with  God,  which  in  covenant  history  and  sacrifice 
they  enjoyed.  But  if  all  that  elaborated  intercourse 
of  God  and  man,  as  represented  in  the  Pentateuch, 
is  an  imagination,  and  God  only  appears  now  and 
again  as  a  finer  spirit  in  the  lives  of  individual  men, 
we  are  on  a  totally.  diflFerent  level.  Save  for  these 
gleams  brightening  toward  the  prophetic  age,  there 
is  nothing  in  Israel's  history  that  was  not  in  Moab, 


2  8     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Ammon,  Egypt,  Assyria.  Up  through  the  rotting 
compost  of  legend  and  polytheism  these  ethical 
gleams  arose,  related  to  no  authentic  word  or 
covenant  purpose  of  God.  They  are  there  simply 
to  be  discerned  by  those  who  see  them,  to  be 
passed  over  or  misrepresented  by  those  who  do 
not,  containing  no  harmonising  view  of  existence, 
that,  subordinating  nature  to  itself,  discovers  the 
full  purpose  of  God. 

Now,  if  this  ethical  immanence  of  a  spirit  which, 
since  it  is  not  of  earth,  is  presumably  of  God,  is 
the  form  of  Old  Testament  revelation,  may  it  not 
also  be  the  true  form  and  quality  of  that  revealed 
in  the  Gospel  ?  However  individuals  may  shrink, 
the  principles  of  the  Higher  Criticism  will  not 
admit  evasion  of  that  conclusion.  And  so  you 
have  the  full  flowering  of  this  movement  in  the 
''  Encyclopedia  Biblica."  Jesus  Christ  is  a  transitory 
gleam.  In  such  an  article  as  that  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Bruce's,  we  see  written  out  with  a  sad 
courage  and  intellectual  honesty  the  real  issues  of 
this  movement.  The  permanent  presence  of  Christ 
in  history  is  eliminated  —  His  pre-existence,  His 
divinity,  His  atoning  death,  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion ;  and  His  life  is  summed  up  in  a  piece  of  plain 
prose,  which  to  us  is  the  death-knell  of  the  critical 
movement,  and  would  be,  could  we  for  a  moment, 
entertain  it  as  true,  more  crushing  than  the  most 
awful  human  calamity. 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  29 

This  is  the  summary  prefacing  his  article  on 
Jesus :  "  Jesus  Christ,  the  author  and  object  of 
the  Christian  faith,  a  Jew  by  race,  was  born  in 
Palestine,  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Herod 
the  Great.  The  home  of  his  childhood  was 
Nazareth,  a  town  in  the  lower  division  of  the 
province  of  Galilee.  The  family  to  which  he 
belonged  was  of  humble  estate.  In  early  years 
he  worked  at  a  handicraft.  On  arriving  at  mature 
manhood  he  became  a  public  teacher,  rapidly 
gained  fame,  gathered  about  him  disciples,  offended 
the  ruling  classes  by  free  criticism  of  the  prevail- 
ing religion,  and  ended  a  brief  but  extraordinary 
career  by  suffering  crucifixion."  And,  according 
to  Professor  Bruce,  that  was  all ! 

It  is  now  high  time  to  set  forth  the  clear  and 
inevitable  issues.  We  have  used  the  word  "  search- 
ing "  because  we  believe  that  this  controversy  goes 
to  the  centre.  As  has  been  always  the  case  in 
great  crises,  we  have  many  prophesying  smooth 
things,  "  healing  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  My 
people  shghtly."  ^  But  we  have  to  look  facts  in 
the  face.  Men  may  make  what  private  exceptions 
from  their  own  theory  they  please,  what  we  have 
to  do  with  is  this  view  of  the  formation  of  Scrip- 
ture, in  its  principles  and  implications.  And  facing 
that,  we  have  no  scruples  in  saying  that  if  we  accept 
the  conclusions  of  Criticism  then  we  have  no  longer 

1  Jeremiah  viii.  ii. 


30     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

an  authoritative  Revelation.  Our  warrant  for  going 
to  the  whole  world  and  offering  pardon  and  renewal 
and  eternal  life  on  the  ground  of  a  Divine  covenant 
promise,  foreshadowed  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
revealed  in  the  New,  is  taken  away.  What  remains 
is  to  assert,  on  the  strength  of  our  own  discern- 
ment, that  we  have  the  finest  ethical  efflorescence 
in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  and  in  Christ; 
and  make  what  headway  we  can.  The  foundation 
on  which  Revelation  rests,  if  Revelation  it  can  now 
be  called,  is  entirely  changed.  The  Bible  is  no 
longer  the  solitary,  immediate  unveiling  of  God, 
discovering  a  purpose,  founding  a  kingdom  in 
which  humanity  should  reach  its  goal,  and  the 
meaning  and  end  of  all  existence  should  stand 
clear.  Judaism  and  Christianity  have  their  true 
place  among  the  ethnic  religions,  if  on  that  level 
they  are  the  best. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  cling  to  the  self- 
witness  of  Revelation,  and  the  Protestant  doctrine 
of  Scripture,  we  have  against  us  a  vast  body  of 
learned  opinion,  not  only  without,  but  within  the 
Church.  Now  we,  whose  lives  are  devoted  to 
practical  spiritual  w^ork,  think  far  too  highly  of 
the  debt  we  owe  to  experts  in  criticism  and 
exegesis,  to  make  light  of  that  opposition.  Still, 
that  man  is  a  weakling  who  renounces  a  deep, 
abiding,  well-authenticated  conviction,  regarding 
what  touches  his  inmost  self,  in  external  defer- 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  31 

ence  to  any  array  of  opinion.  And  we  have  seen 
strange  things  in  our  time.  Coming  back  to 
Tyndall's  fiery  cloud,  we  can  remember  when 
the  great  guns  of  science  were  thundering  on 
the  side  of  materiahsm.  But  what  has  happened  ? 
The  men  have  fallen  in  their  places,  the  smoke 
has  cleared  away,  and  human  personality  and 
the  spiritual  side  of  human  existence  have  come 
out  in  modern  speculation  as  never  perhaps 
before. 

But  what  if  the  facts  compel  us  to  the  critical 
position?  Professor  G.  Adam  Smith  says  Criti- 
cism has  won,  and  we  have  to  discuss  the  indem- 
nity.^ As  one  who  stands  by  Revelation  in  its 
completeness,  witnessed  to  in  a  redeemed  experi- 
ence, we  wish  popularly,  but  we  trust  really  and 
honestly,  to  investigate  the  claim  in  six  succeeding 
chapters.  Believe  it,  that  indemnity  will  never  be 
paid.  Proceeding  in  regular  order,  before  dealing 
with  this  hypothesis  being  thrust  upon  us,  we 
shall  look  and  see  whether  something  may  not 
still  be  said  for  Revelation's  self-witness.  After 
a  process  of  disintegration  such  as  no  literature 
has  suffered,  we  shall  find  that  the  strength  of  the 
traditional  view  is  unbroken,  and  really  heightened 
by  the  new  light  of  history  and  science.  Coming 
to  the  critical  hypothesis  we  shall  then  show  the 
class  of  arguments  to  which  it  belongs,  what  con- 

1  <'  Modern  Criticism,"  p.  73. 


32     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

ditions  are  necessary  to  its  validity,  and  how  far 
this  critical  hypothesis  meets  these.  Continuing 
our  criticism,  we  shall  bring  out  the  objections 
which  may  be  taken  to  the  disintegration  of  Scrip- 
ture. In  the  following  chapter,  leaving  argument 
in  detail,  we  shall  take  the  Old  Testament  as  it 
has  been  reconstructed  by  Criticism,  and  show 
that  it  is  beset  by  difficulties,  does  not  hang 
together,  lacks  all  probability  as  a  spiritual 
whole,  is  indeed  a  scheme,  artificial  in  the 
highest  degree,  with  only  one  recommendation 
— that  it  fits  into  a  naturalistic  idea  of  human 
development. 

But  if  all  this  be  true,  the  question  arises  :  How 
have  such  mistaken  conclusions  been  arrived  at  ? 
Our  answer  is  :  There  have  been  errors  of  method. 
Revelation  has  rights  as  a  fact  in  the  life  of  the 
world  which  critics  have  not  conceded,  and  which 
they  must  concede.  And  then,  harking  back  to 
the  second  chapter,  we  wish  to  show  over  against 
the  thoroughly  lame  and  halting  reconstruction 
of  Criticism  the  profound  harmonies  of  Old 
Testament  Revelation  as  it  lies  before  us  in 
Scripture,  its  historic  reasonableness  (inspiration 
assumed),  the  many  considerations  making  for 
the  authenticity  of  the  Mosaic  Revelation,  the 
profound  likelihood  of  the  further  history,  in 
every  phase  of  reaction,  momentary  uprise,  slow 
national  ascent,  on   to  the   kingdom,   the   temple, 


THE  SEARCHING  ISSUES  ^t^ 

the  blossoming  of  intellectual  consciousness,  pro- 
phecy—  the  whole  discovering  a  living  national 
growth  on  the  plane  of  a  special  revelation  of 
God,  whose  glory  is  the  sufficient  proof  of 
its  reality. 


II 


THE  UNBROKEN  AND  GROWING  STRENGTH 
OF  THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 

John  X.   35:  "The  Scripture  cannot  be  broken." 

We  have  seen,  then,  the  searching  issues  of  this 
controversy.  What  is  at  stake  is  the  continued 
recognition  of  an  authoritative  revelation.  Mani- 
festly that  is  the  issue,  frankly  and  openly  raised, 
between  the  Church  and  the  acknowledged  leaders 
in  criticism.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  really  not 
different  with  those  who  speak  of  an  element  of 
religion,  and  even  of  revelation,  still  clinging  to  the 
disintegrated  documents.  For  revelation  stands  on 
such  a  plane,  and  enters  in  such  a  manner,  that, 
even  if  we  concede  the  name,  the  character  and 
authoritative  quality  are  changed. 

Now,  what  does  that  mean  ?  We  have  here 
the  profoundest  conflict  between  two  lines  of  evi- 
dence— between  that  inner  unity  and  coherence  of 
revelation,  as  containing  an  evolution  of  the  Divine 
purpose,  believed  in  by  the  Christians  of  eighteen 
centuries ;  and  the  modern  disintegration,  more 
particularly  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  its  recon- 
struction on  critical  lines,  supported  by  a  vast  body 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  ^^ 

of  learned  opinion,  especially  in  the  last  generation. 
True,  these  lines  of  evidence  move  on  different 
levels — the  former  appealing  to  spiritual  insight, 
and  demonstrating  reality  by  effects  on  the  thought 
and  life  and  public  action  of  men ;  the  latter  deal- 
ing with  historical  and  linguistic  tests,  according  to 
laws  of  ordinary  probability  and  common  human 
experience. 

Now,  the  same  men  are  seldom  equally  strong 
in  both  these  directions.  And  so  we  have  a  great 
multitude,  secure  of  their  spiritual  perceptions,  to 
whom  practically  the  unity  of  revelation  is  as 
axiomatic  as  the  unity  of  consciousness.  And 
these  are  unable — we  do  not  say  to  acquiesce  in 
the  results  of  criticism — but  even  to  understand  on 
what  evidence  or  under  what  considerations  critics 
have  been  drawn  to  their  apparently  astounding 
and  incredible  conclusions. 

And  not  less  one-sidedly,  critics,  immersed  in 
their  literary  and  historical  investigations,  when 
they  come  as  now  to  somewhat  generally  received 
conclusions,  think,  and  in  effect  say,  that  taking 
the  external  history  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be 
what  they  have  shown,  we  should  without  question 
pay  the  indemnity.  In  other  words  we  should  tone 
down  our  spiritual  consciousness — for  that  is  what 
their  request  amounts  to  —  divest  us  of  beliefs 
by  which  we  have  been  nurtured,  and  step  to  the 
lower  level,  the  vaguer  faith,  the  more  uncertain 


^6     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

hope  of  a  revelation  duly  sterilised  by  critical  pro- 
cesses, and  warranted  by  critical  judgment  to  be 
worthy  of  rational  acceptance. 

As  Protestants  we  are  seeking  truth.  Our 
religion  can  only  stand  on  foundations  of  truth. 
But  naturally  what  we  on  our  side  start  from  in 
entering  upon  this  inquiry  is  not  the  unknown, 
which  comes  with  strange  front,  but  the  familiar — 
this  revelation  borne  witness  to  in  experience,  and 
the  outward  testimony  of  tradition  on  which  it  has 
rested.  Surely  the  prudent  course  is,  before  we 
take  up  with  a  modern  view,  conceived  by  men  of 
alien  race,  in  a  far  distant  century,  and  especially  a 
hypothetical  view  founded  on  an  evolutionary  theory 
utterly  hostile  to  Hebrew  thought,  that  we  should 
look  and  see  whether  we  might  not  yet  stand  where 
the  Christian  and  Jewish  generations  have  stood, 
and  find  in  tradition  sufficient  external  foundation 
for  a  Revelation  marked  by  such  internal  excellence 
and  coherence  of  all  the  parts. 

Yet  we  can  fancy  an  amused  smile  rising  on 
many  faces  as  they  read  the  title  of  this  our  second 
chapter.  For,  if  significant,  the  external  evidence 
for  the  Old  Testament  is  very  scant;  and  what 
remained  seemed  to  have  been  broken  into  frag- 
ments by  the  explosives  of  criticism.  To  look 
abroad  upon  that  fair  territory,  which  appeared  a 
unity  amid  endless  diversity — a  great  coherent  and 
progressive  self-revelation  of  God — to  the  genera- 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  37 

tions  of  the  past,  is  like  gazing  upon  a  town  in  the 
Riviera  after  an  earthquake.  Where  was  beauty 
is  desolation.  The  Pentateuch  is  disrupted  into 
many  fragments,  and  carried  down  to  late  dates. 
The  later  histories  are  treated  after  similar  fashion. 
The  Psalms  are  dislodged,  not  only  from  individual 
traditional  connections,  but  from  the  era  and  the 
surroundings  in  which  all  ancient  testimony  existent 
on  the  subject  locates  the  greater  number.  Isaiah 
is  broken  up  into  what  has  been  called  an  antho- 
logy of  collected  prophetic  utterances.  One  walks 
with  uncertainty  amid  the  ruins,  doubtful  where  he 
may  still  plant  his  foot,  fearful  at  what  point  some 
new  destructive  critic  may  blow  him  into  the  air. 

And  yet  we  are  prepared  to  say  that  after  this 
cataclysm  the  foundations  of  the  traditional  view 
are  not  overthrown.  We  may  find  unbroken  and 
unbreakable  pillars  on  which  we  may  set  it  up 
again.  Yea,  we  shall  see  before  we  are  done  that 
while  the  stars  in  their  courses  have  been  fighting 
against  the  theory  which  we  oppose,  from  the 
failures  of  criticism,  from  archaeology,  and  from 
the  science  of  religion,  have  been  coming  evidences 
confirmatory  of  tradition,  some  of  remarkable  per- 
tinence and  force.  The  poetic  unity,  the  informing 
creative  genius  of  Homer,  shone  out  more  vividly 
in  his  epics  after  the  disintegrating  critical  attacks 
of  Wolf  and  his  school.  And  so  to  those  who  do 
not  echo  prevailing  opinion,  but   aspire    to  judge 


38     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

for  themselves,  the  Pentateuch  seems  now  instinct 
with  a  glory  of  revelation,  a  breath  of  holiness, 
and  (on  its  unprecedented  level)  an  historical  veri- 
similitude, that  speak  to  every  spiritual  sense,  as 
being  no  less  really  an  unveiling  of  the  Divine,  than 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  or  the  Gospel  according 
to  John. 

In  upholding  the  validity  of  tradition,  we  shall 
confine  ourselves  to  the  Pentateuch.  In  every 
sense  that  is  the  key  of  the  position.  If  that  can 
be  maintained  as  a  credible  and  substantially  con- 
temporary record  of  a  true  revelation  of  God  to 
Moses,  and  through  Moses  to  Israel,  incorporating 
the  sacred  family  traditions  of  earlier  revelations ; 
and  if,  as  a  consequence,  the  whole  subsequent 
history  is  controlled  by  God's  choice  of  Israel  and 
His  revelation  to  Israel,  then  all  that  remains — 
histories,  psalms,  prophecies  fall  into  their  places 
according  to  the  traditional  view.  Whereas,  if  it 
could  be  proved  that  this  Pentateuch  now  lying 
in  our  hands  is  an  imaginative  reconstruction  of 
Hebrew  history,  according  to  the  profounder  ideas 
of  the  prophets,  incorporating,  it  is  true,  rude 
fragments  of  early  tradition,  but  worked  over 
again  and  again  by  late  writers  trying  to  glorify 
their  national  beginnings,  then  criticism  might  fairly 
claim  to  have  won. 

But  further,  allow  us  to  say  that  what  we  are 
engaged  in  settling  is  not  a  literary  question — that 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 


39 


Moses  was  the  author  of  every  word,  or  almost 
every  word,  in  these  five  books.  Nor  even  do  we 
attempt  to  apply  the  historical  tests  which  are 
necessary  in  regard  to  later  ages,  where  documen- 
tary authorities  are  abundant.  We  have  not  the 
making  of  the  problems  with  which  we  have  to 
deal.  All  questions  of  historical  origin  retreat  into 
mystery,  and  we  must  use  such  means  as  lie  at  our 
disposal,  bringing  in  from  every  quarter  whatever 
may  throw  light  on  the  theme.  Nor  does  this 
history  of  the  chosen  people,  although  informed 
by  a  spirit  of  solitary  loftiness  and  purity,  differ 
in  this  respect  from  other  histories.  But  there  is 
another  ground  that  we  may  take,  which  involves 
both  the  historical  character  and  the  Mosaic  author- 
ship as  subordinate  issues,  and  which  has  the  further 
advantage  of  raising  the  fundamental  question  by 
which  this  whole  movement  will  have  to  be  judged. 
Among  the  higher  critics  there  are  great  diver- 
sities of  individual  position,  many  reimporting  into 
their  reconstructed  Old  Testament  the  greater 
portion  of  the  existing  Scriptures  as  true  for  the 
times  to  which  they  refer,  others  more  extreme ; 
some  more  conscious  of  an  informing  presence  of 
God,  others  tracing  to  political  and  such  like 
agencies  the  peculiar  features  of  the  history  of 
Israel.  All  of  these,  however,  the  most  con- 
servative as  well  as  the  most  revolutionary,  are 
committed  to  this.     The  Pentateuch  in  its  present 


40     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

form  is  not  to  be  taken  as  a  true  account  of  a 
Divine  revelation  given  to  Moses,  formally  choos- 
ing Israel  as  a  peculiar  people,  investing  them  with 
laws  for  ends  of  moral  and  religious  discipline,  and 
appointing  sacrifices  by  which  they  might  come 
from  every  wandering  back  into  fellowship  with 
God.  What  is  represented  as  creative,  and  the 
beginning  of  a  covenant  history  in  Holy  Scripture, 
was  the  gathered  result  and  dramatic  presentation 
of  a  long  developnient,  according  to  the  critical 
hypothesis. 

It  is  this  central  position,  common  to  all  higher 
critics,  which  we  contest.  It  is  the  historical 
reahty  of  this  revelation  for  which  we  contend. 
Indeed,  this  is  what  gives  us  warrant  for  inter- 
vening in  this  discussion  at  all.  Pardon  us  repeat- 
ing this  once  what  in  other  forms  we  have  already 
affirmed.  From  without,  by  their  external  tests, 
the  critics  are  interfering  with  the  unity  of  a 
coherent  system  of  thought — and  a  system  of 
thought  on  a  plane  far  more  commanding  than 
any  philosophic  system  with  which  it  may  be 
compared.  They  are  destroying  the  record  of  an 
advancing  Divine  purpose,  intertwining  itself  with 
history,  appearing  and  re-appearing  with  a  Divine 
originality,  but  rounding  in  the  completed  result 
to  not  only  a  unity  of  plan,  but  a  glory  of  self- 
revelation  in  Christ  which  has  won  the  credence 
and    transfigured    the   character    of    nearly    sixty 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  41 

generations.  And  holding  with  an  absolute  faith 
the  unity  and  truth  of  this  coherent  system,  no 
wonder  if,  while  loyal  to  fact  and  ready  to  follow 
whithersoever  it  leads,  we  narrowly  scrutinise  every 
critical  claim. 

Come,  then,  and,  laying  hold  of  such  facts  as 
critics  themselves  admit,  and  passages  of  Scripture 
whose  evidence  cannot  be  questioned,  let  us  dis- 
cover what  supports  we  still  possess  for  the 
traditional  view.  And  as  we  go  forward  you 
will  keep  in  remembrance  that  if  the  facts  be 
scant,  we  are  dealing  not  with  speculative  reason- 
ing, but  with  direct  testimonies  from  the  history 
and  literature  of  the  chosen  people. 

It  is  admitted,  then,  that  the  Pentateuch  had 
practically  come  to  exist  in  the  form  familiar  to  us 
by  the  time  of  Ezra,  after  the  Exile.  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  says  :  "  The  Pentateuch,  or 
Torah,  as  we  now  have  it  (for  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  law  which  was  in  Ezra's  hands 
was  practically  identical  with  our  present  Hebrew 
Pentateuch)  became  the  religious  and  municipal 
code  of  Israel."^  Here,  then,  our  feet  are  on 
rock  of  reality.  In  444  B.C.,  the  Pentateuch  was 
in  existence,  was  recognised  by  the  whole  nation 
as  the  law  of  God  given  to  Moses,  and  as  such 
absolutely  dominated  the  national  conscience  and 
heart.      It  is   not  necessary  that  we   should   give 

^  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  56. 


42     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

quotations,  as  the  point  is  not  seriously  contested, 
and  one  has  but  to  read  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  to 
convince  him  of  the  fact.  But,  according  to  the 
critical  view,  the  Pentateuch  then  must  have  been 
brand  new.  For  if  Deuteronomy  dated  back  to 
Josiah's  days,  and  a  fragment  incorporated  in 
Exodus,  chapters  xx.-xxiii.,  was  extant  in  written 
form  earlier  still,  the  Priests'  Code,  embracing  a 
large  portion  of  Exodus,  and  Leviticus,  and  the 
greater  part  of  Numbers,  had  only  recently  been 
put  together  and  incorporated  with  the  rest.  So 
late  as  the  Exile  the  clear  light  of  history  is  faUing 
around.  Have  we,  then,  any  hint  or  suggestion 
of  these  recent  editings?  Not  only  is  there  an 
utter  unconsciousness  of  this  process  of  redaction, 
but  there  is  a  whole  set  of  circumstances  which 
rule  the  supposition  out  as  utterly  incredible. 

Do  not  be  led  away  by  words,  but  pierce  to  the 
facts  of  the  situation.  It  is  characteristic  of  this 
movement,  that  we  are  asked  to  assent  to  con- 
clusions which  have  immense  practical  conse- 
quences, on  minute  points  of  scholarship  or  wide- 
sweeping  inferences  from  uncertain  premises, 
while  the  larger  considerations  of  historical  pro- 
babihty,  the  true  proportions  of  cause  and  effect 
in  the  region  of  the  spiritual,  and  such  like,  are 
ignored,  if  they  have  not  been  overlooked.  What 
have  they  who  deal  so  much  in  probabilities  and 
presumptions  to  say  to  this  egregious  stumbling- 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  43 

block  for  the  scientific  understanding  involved  in 
their  theory  ?  A  nation  like  Israel  comes  out  of 
a  term  of  eclipse  in  the  Exile,  with  a  volume  or 
volumes  of  laws  imbedded  in  history,  for  which 
they  have  the  profoundest  reverence  as  a  revela- 
tion of  God  given  in  the  dawn  of  their  history 
to  Moses.  These  inspire  the  action  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah,  and  when  publicly  read,  receive  not 
only  universal  assent,  but  stir  the  profoundest 
emotions  of  the  whole  people. 

And  yet  according  to  the  vaunted  wisdom  of 
this  latest  age,  that  legislation  did  not,  as  they 
believed,  come  from  God,  did  not  belong  as  a 
whole  to  the  Mosaic  age.  The  greater  portion 
was  a  concoction  of  the  Exile,  pieced  together 
from  old  law  and  consuetudinary  usage,  but 
wrought  up,  not  only  with  a  fertile  imagina- 
tion, but  with  something  approaching  conscious 
fabrication. 

To  take  one  instance,  there  was  no  tabernacle 
in  the  wilderness.  Some  writer  who  knew  about 
the  temple  of  Solomon  conceived  a  rude  desert 
prototype  of  that  sanctuary,  built  and  furnished 
it  out  of  his  imagination,  and  projected  the  whole 
as  fact  into  the  times  of  Moses,  into  the  centre 
of  Israel's  history,  and  into  the  heart  of  a 
ceremonial  system  which,  though  reported  old, 
was  also  in  form,  and  largely  in  substance  like- 
wise,  fabrication.     To  add  to  the  utter  unlikeli- 


44     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

hood  and  topsy-turvyness  of  this  dream,  the 
Priests'  Code  in  large  part  was  a  reduction  to 
prose  and  legislative  enactment  of  Ezekiel's 
imaginative  picture  of  the  temple,  which  all  pre- 
vious centuries  regarded  as  a  prophetic  idealisation 
of  the  Mosaic  ritual,  pointing  forward  to  some- 
thing which  may  yet  be  reahsed  in  the  latter  days. 
Here,  then,  is  what  we  are  asked  to  believe, 
that  during  the  Exile^ — generally  reported  a  time 
of  depression,  though  not  without  great  writers 
like  Ezekiel — and  while  the  nation  were  awakened 
to  profound  penitence  for  their  past — there  were 
other  writers,  who  have  left  no  trace,  not  touched 
with  the  national  sense  of  sin,  with  no  very  acute 
feeling  of  moral  realities,  who  were  filled  with  the 
desire  at  any  cost  to  glorify  the  national  be- 
ginnings. These  unknown  writers,  as  we  have 
seen,  did  not  only  not  hesitate  to  fabricate  the 
tabernacle  and  a  complete  ritual  for  the  same, 
but  wrought  them  up  with  an  archaic  account 
of  a  descent  of  God  upon  Sinai,  which  somehow 
the  Hebrews  possessed  in  the  J  and  E  narratives 
when  they  were  polytheists  in  religion  and  had 
only  nature  festivals  for  sacrifices.  Dovetailing 
these  utterly  incongruous  materials,  they  presumed 
to  put  words  in  His  mouth,  and  to  depict  thrilling 
situations  in  which  Moses  and  the  people  appeared 
in  soul-subduing  relations  to  Jehovah.  And  not 
only  did  these  writers,  without  name  or  position, 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  45 

secure  from  the  people  such  acceptance  as  we 
gladly  give  to  "  Ivanhoe  "  for  its  vivid  imaginative 
pictures  of  a  far-off  time.  We  are  asked  to 
believe  that  the  nation  took  these  audacious  ima- 
ginings— of  which  none  but  the  coarsest  natures, 
however  clever,  could  be  capable  —  not  only  for 
truth,  but  for  the  central  reality  which  lies  behind 
all  outward  shows  of  the  true,  a  revelation  of  God. 
We  are  asked  to  believe  that  this  conviction  not 
only  commanded  a  national  devotion  to  the  law 
unparalleled  for  persistence  and  intensity,  but 
kindled  a  national  consciousness  in  Israel  of  being 
the  peculiar  people  of  God,  on  the  basis  of  this 
Mosaic  covenant, — which  continues  even  to  this 
day,  after  a  thousand  vicissitudes,  to  bind  the 
Jews  into  an  indestructible  unity,  when  every 
bond  of  land,  community  of  polity,  or  home  tie 
has  been  destroyed. 

It  will  take  a  thousand  times  the  evidence 
which  critics  have  to  bring,  and  evidence  of  a 
different  kind  from  any  which  they  possess,  to 
overcome  the  extreme  unlikelihood  of  that  sup- 
position. Men  who  live  in  the  open  air  of 
reality,  grappling  with  hard,  unyielding  fact,  and 
understanding  the  limits  of  their  faculties,  will 
deem  it  far  easier  of  belief  that,  as  in  the  New 
Testament  so  in  the  Old,  God  should  have  given 
a  true  revelation  of  Himself,  starting,  from  a 
creative    beginning,    the    national    history ;     than 


46     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

that  a  series  of  occurrences  abhorrent  to  the 
spiritual  judgment,  offensive  to  the  moral  sense, 
utterly  unauthenticated,  and  violating  every  canon 
of  probability,  should  actually  have  taken  place. 

Turn  from  this  distorted  dream  of  a  theory  which 
inverts  the  facts,  to  the  sober  simplicity  of  tradition; 
and  if  the  facts  are  few,  everything  is  in  keeping  with 
history  and  satisfying  to  the  spiritual  judgment. 

There  is  one  fact  about  the  Exile  beyond 
dispute — it  must  have  been  a  time  of  the  pro- 
foundest  searching  of  heart.  For  the  Jews  broke 
definitely  with  idolatry  which,  persisted  in  for 
many  centuries,  had  wrought  their  ruin.  Now 
began  a  passionate  devotion  to  the  law  and  an  ex- 
clusive worship  of  God  which  have  not  relaxed  their 
hold  even  to  this  day.  What  could  have  wrought 
such  a  change?  Where  all  the  great  prophets 
had  utterly  failed,  what  secured  success?  Their 
casting  oif  as  the  covenant  people  of  God  woke 
them  to  covenant  position  and  privilege.  As  in 
setting  the  sun  lights  the  hills  above  which  it 
rose,  they  who,  with  all  their  sins,  were  children 
of  the  covenant,  with  pride  of  their  peculiar 
destiny  ingrained  in  their  affections  and  thought, 
went  back  to  the  glory  of  their  national  beginnings. 
The  Kingdom  of  God  has  had  several  such  moments 
of  intense  consciousness  when,  athwart  the  errors 
and  misdirected  activity  of  a  thousand  years,  her 
members   have    seen    their    true    ideal    and    their 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  47 

grievous  sin,  and  have  resolved  at  all  cost  to 
recover  their  place,  enjoy  their  privileges,  and 
discharge  their  duties. 

Now  we  put  it  to  the  reader  to  judge  whether 
that  is  not  the  case  here.  All  the  intervening  cen- 
turies sink  into  comparative  insignificance,  and  they 
are  back  in  the  desert  with  Moses.  His  name  is 
mentioned  oftener  in  these  brief  books  of  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  than  in  all  the  prophets.  After 
centuries  of  chastisement,  in  which  they  kept 
closing  their  eyes  to  facts,  and  going  on  in  their 
self-willed  way,  they  have  come  fully  to  see  that 
the  creative  beginnings  of  their  nation,  and  all  that 
was  peculiar  in  their  destiny,  lay  in  the  Mosaic 
age.  God  had  spoken  to  them  through  His 
servant,  had  appointed  them  ordinances,  and 
entered  into  covenant  with  them.  The  wail  of 
an  infinite  sadness  fills  the  period.  Read  the 
prayer  of  Nehemiah.^  All  the  people  wept  when 
they  heard  the  law.  Yea,  the  very  fervour  of 
their  reverence  for  a  consecrated  past,  long 
trampled  on,  but  now  reconsecrated  in  their  view, 
brought  a  new  tone  and  limitation  into  their 
religious  spirit,  which  distinguishes  the  post-exilic 
from  the  pre-exilic  ages.  They  are  lovers  of  the 
Book,  observers  of  a  law,  zealots  of  a  system,  and 
not  so  much  worshippers  in  the  liberty  of  glad 
fellowship  with  God  as  the  men  of  an  earlier  day. 

^  Nehemiah  i. 


48     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

But  only  the  profoundest  sense  of  God,  once  angry 
but  now  returning  in  favour,  can  explain  the 
extraordinary  heights  of  reverence  and  submission 
which  they  reached.  All  thought  of  further 
developments  overborne,  they  sought  with  a 
matchless  devotion  to  become  conservers  of  the 
past. 

Ezra  set  himself  to  collect  and  edit  the  sacred 
books  containing  the  law  of  Jehovah.  His  highest 
function  was  to  unfold  the  teaching  of  these  Divine 
statutes.  The  very  first  task,  undertaken  amid 
many  difficulties,  was  to  get  back  into  the  old 
covenant  relation  by  setting  up  the  temple  worship 
according  to  the  law  of  Moses.  "And  they  set 
the  priests  in  their  divisions,  and  the  Levites  in 
their  courses,  for  the  service  of  God,  which  is  at 
Jerusalem,  as  it  is  written  in  the  book  of  Moses."  ^ 

But  more  striking  even  than  that,  as  a  token  of 
measureless  devotion,  occurred  an  act  to  which  we 
have  discovered  no  parallel  in  history.  Only  a 
moiety  of  the  people  came  back  from  Babylon. 
They  were  in  a  shrunken  state,  harassed  by 
enemies.  But  far  more  important  to  them  than 
any  material  advantage  was  winning  again  the 
favour  of  God.  Consider,  they  had  been  seventy 
years,  more  or  less,  in  exile.  The  greater  number 
would  be  born  there.  Heathen  alliances  would 
have  gone  on  unchecked,  when  so  many  of  those 

1  Ezra  vi.  i8. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  49 

who  returned  were  found  in  that  condition.  Yet 
at  the  command  of  Ezra — a  command  for  which 
he  has  often  been  blamed  —  priests  and  levites 
and  people  surrendered  their  strange  wives.  Read 
Ezra  ix.  and  x.,  and  if  you  have  an  eye  for  a 
historic  situation  you  will  find  yourself  face  to  face 
with  a  heartrending  fact,  which  only  the  pro- 
foundest  reverence  for  God's  revealed  will  could 
bring  within  a  hundred  degrees  of  realisation. 

Nor  was  this  absolute  submission  a  momentary 
phase,  but  in  substance  a  permanent  condition. 
Twenty  years  after,  on  Ezra's  return,  the  people 
desired  to  hear  the  law,  to  have  direct  knowledge 
of  the  conditions  of  God's  covenant  with  them ; 
and  then  the  whole  nation  made  a  written  covenant 
with  God.i  Century  by  century  this  consciousness 
of  being  in  covenant  with  God  only  grew.  In 
virtue  of  this  they  came  with  an  ethical  witness  to 
that  old  world.  Because  of  this  ethical  conscious- 
ness, with  its  vast  horizon  of  spiritual  beUefs,  the 
poor  crushed  Jew,  utterly  uninteresting  in  himself, 
attracted  the  reverent  interest  of  the  Western 
nations.  The  Septuagint  is  a  wonderful  tribute  to 
the  respect  which,  on  account  of  his  religious  heri- 
tage, the  Jew  won  from  the  overbearing  Greeks. 

In  the  times  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  then,  the 
Pentateuch  was  not  only  existent,  but  had  gathered 
round  it  an  immense  religious  reverence,  inspired 

^  Nehemiah  ix.  38. 
D 


so     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

to  acts  and  sacrifices  which  prove  past  dispute 
that  these  books  had  unquestioned  claims  upon 
them  as  revelation.  Are  we  to  believe  that  a 
shrewd  people  in  such  a  crisis,  when  roused  to 
such  unheard-of  sacrifices,  were  the  dupes  of 
unlicensed  imaginations?  Ay,  and  more,  are  we 
to  believe  that,  in  the  case  of  a  nation  which  had 
sunk  so  far,  recent  fabrications  not  only  imposed 
on  them,  but  kindled  a  new  constraining  conscious- 
ness of  God,  as  in  covenant  relation  with  them, 
which  impressed  heathenism,  moulded  the  thought 
of  succeeding  generations  in  preparation  for  the 
Christ,  and  remains  an  imperishable  possession  of 
the  human  race  ? 

Though  that  were  the  earliest  direct  reference 
to  the  Pentateuch,  and  though  we  had  to  confess 
that  nine  hundred  years  lay  between  the  volume 
in  Ezra's  hand  and  its  supposed  origin,  we  should 
require  much  stronger  evidence  than  an  unproved 
hypothesis  to  make  away  with  that  proof. 

Let  us  go  back  now  about  i8o  years  to  the 
times  of  Josiah.  Here  we  have  evidence  of  a  very 
remarkable  kind  that  the  book  of  the  law  existed. 
Let  us  take  first  what  lies  on  the  face  of 
the  narrative. 1  The  book  was  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord.  In  the  terrible  reaction  and  de- 
generacy of  Manasseh's  reign,  and  for  how  long 

^  2  Kings  xxii  and  xxiii. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  51 

before  we  do  not  know,  it  had  been  lost  sight 
of  and  forgotten.  Josiah  the  young  king  is  need- 
ing all  the  help  he  can  receive  to  cleanse  the  un- 
speakable pollutions  of  the  land.  And  man's  ex- 
tremity is  God's  opportunity.  Seeming  accidents 
enter  largely  into  the  disposition  of  human  affairs. 
A  sleepless  night  to  Ahasuerus,  and  a  chance  read- 
ing of  his  chronicles,  changed  the  whole  policy  of 
his  empire  towards  the  Jews.  And  Hilkiah,  stir- 
ring about,  under  the  spell  of  his  royal  master's 
intensity,  fmds  amid  the  archives  of  the  temple  the 
sacred  law.  That  is  what  the  text  says — he  found. 
He  told  Shaphan  that  he  found.  Shaphan  told  the 
king,  who  instantly  trembled  as  in  the  presence 
of  God.  Josiah's  words  are  most  searching. ^ 
Evidently  all  this  was  new  to  him.  And  yet 
he  cannot  shake  himself  free  from  blame.  He 
should  have  known.  But  his  fathers  were  more 
to  blame  for  entirely  overlooking  this  book.  He 
also,  however,  is  involved  in  the  great  wrath  of 
the  Lord,  for  all  these  are  things  concerning  the 
people,  and  they  have  been  neglected  and  set  at 
nought  even  to  the  present  moment.  While  con- 
vinced that  these  are  divine  testimonies,  Josiah  is 
so  utterly  disconcerted  that  he  would  like  every 
confirmation.  He  sends  Hilkiah  and  others  to 
Huldah  the  prophetess,  who  receives  from  Jehovah 
a  message,  which  is  a  present-day  commentary  on 

^  2  Kings  xxii.  n-13. 


52     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

that  page  of  far-oii  times.  God,  through  His 
living  messenger,  confirms  His  ancient  testimonies. 

Is  there  not  a  remarkable  verisimilitude  in  that 
story,  and  do  you  not  find  in  this  the  adequate 
explanation  of  Josiah's  striking,  if  evanescent,  re- 
formation ? 

For  a  generation,  however,  this  -self-consistent 
and  reasonable  account  has  been  overlaid  for 
multitudes  of  believing  men,  by  a  grotesque  hypo- 
thesis which  will,  in  the  end,  prove  nothing  better 
than  a  trap  to  catch  unwary  critics.  They  have, 
with  singular  agreement,  decided  that  this  book  of 
the  law  contained  only  Deuteronomy.  They  find 
traces  of  Deuteronomic  influence  in  Jeremiah. 
But  manifestly  that  is  only  a  proof  that  Deuter- 
onomy was  included,  not  that  Exodus,  Leviticus, 
Numbers  were  excluded.  Then  embarking  on  the 
sea  of  pure  supposition,  the  hardier  spirits  will 
have  it  that  this  book  was  a  concoction  of  Hilkiah 
or  some  others  ;  while  the  more  reverent,  to  get 
rid  of  the  questionable  semblance  of  forgery,  carry 
it  back  to  Manasseh's  time,  and  suppose  that  some 
unknown  person,  filled  with  the  thoughts  of  the 
great  prophets,  drew  up  an  ideal  picture  of  the  law 
in  the  form  of  orations  spoken  by  the  great  leader. 

We  say  nothing  of  the  evil  seeming  inseparable 
from  any  form  of  this  theory.  Right  through,  the 
higher  criticism  is  a  science  of  doubtful  expedients. 
Leaving  the  safe  course  of  allowing,  on  the  testi- 
mony of  revelation,  the  direct  presence  and  order- 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  S3 

ing  of  God,  they  are  landed  in  morasses  of  always 
dubious,  and  sometimes  as  here,  let  us  say,  very 
painful  suppositions.  Nor  can  any  form  of  the 
theory  explain  the  effect  from  such  a  cause. 

But  we  go  on  to  affirm  that  this  is  a  most  un- 
fortunate hypothesis.  Notice  this,  that,  according 
to  the  critics,  up  to  Josiah's  days,  or  a  generation 
before  him,  the  only  fragment  of  written  law 
which  existed  as  we  have  it  was  Exodus  xx.-xxiii. 
Deuteronomy  comes  next.  The  Priests'  Code,  con- 
taining Leviticus  and  large  portions  of  Exodus  and 
Numbers,  was  not  put  together  until  long  after, 
in  the  exile. 

Now,  with  all  due  respect,  this  placing  i  Deu- 
teronomy long  before  the  Priests'  Code,  looks  like 
building  a  house  down  from  the  chimney.  Deuter- 
onomy is  in  form,  scope,  and  spirit  a  recapitulation. 
Like  the  swell  of  the  ocean  after  a  mighty  storm, 
there  are  a  fervour,  an  exultation  of  soul,  a  con- 
sciousness of  God,  of  sublime  and  solitary  relation 
to  God,  and  of  an  established  covenant  with  Him, 
only  explicable  on  the  supposition  of  such  an 
unveiling  of  God  as  the  earlier  books  describe. 
Deuteronomy  is  great  more  because  of  what  it 
points  back  to  than  of  what  it  expresses. 

It  is  true  that,  according  to  critical  opinion,  in 
the  Jehovist  and  Elohist  documents,  united  in 
J.E.  about  a  century  before  Amos,  there  were  re- 
markable traditions  of,  for  instance,   the  plagues, 


54     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  deliverance  from  captivity,  and  the  Red  Sea 
crossing,  though  lacking  as  yet  the  elements  from 
the  Priests'  Code,  which  invest  them  with  their 
dignity  as  a  supposed  revelation  from  God  and  the 
beginning  of  a  dispensation.  But  this  is  just  a 
proof  of  the  hopeless  incongruities  of  the  critical 
analysis.  According  to  the  critics,  at  the  time 
when  J.E.  was  put  together,  the  Jews  were  poly- 
theists,  worshipping  Jehovah  as  the  Moabites  wor- 
shipped Chemosh.  Their  sacrifices  were  nature 
festivals.  How  could  they,  upon  that  level  of 
close  proximity  to  heathenism,  have  possessed 
documents  breathing  so  sublime  a  monotheism.'' 
For  the  call  of  Moses  at  the  burning  bush,  and 
the  profound  sense  of  a  present  God  in  the  plagues, 
are  parts  of  that  tradition.  Either  the  critical 
analysis  is  utterly  at  fault  (and  they  confess  its 
almost  hopeless  difficulty  at  this  point  ^)  or  these 
old  traditions  must  have  been  wrought  up  from 
crude  traditions  by  the  later  writers  of  the  exile, 
whose  works  are  gathered  up  in  the  Priests'  Code. 
In  which  case  they  could  not  have  existed  in  their 
present  form  for  the  writer  of  Deuteronomy. 

But  to  remove  the  last  vestige  of  doubt,  note 
this  further  fact.  The  central  feature  in  which 
Josiah's  reformation  culminated  was  a  wonderful 
observance  of  the  Passover.  Turn  to  Deuter- 
onomy xvi.  I  -  8,   and   can   you   conceive  so  con- 

1  See  article  "  Exodus,"  Dr  Hastings'  Bible  Dictionary,  Vol.  I.  p.  8o8. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 


55 


densed  and  quiet  a  narrative,  if  it  stood  alone, 
inspiring  such  an  act  ?  Beyond  all  question  Josiah 
had  the  complete  narrative  of  God's  deliverance  of 
Israel  from  Egypt  before  him.  His  whole  being 
was  aflame  with  the  sense  of  God's  power.  What 
might  He  not  do  for  them  ^  Josiah  would  revive 
the  great  memories  of  that  hour,  and  in  the  Pass- 
over, the  original  and  type  of  all  sacrifice,  bring 
His  people  under  the  sheltering  blood  and  into 
covenant  with  Himself. 

We  look  upon  this  incident,  then,  as  another 
unbroken  foundation  of  the  traditional  view.  It 
does  not  formally  prove  the  existence  of  a  com- 
pleted Pentateuch.  But  it  does  prove  that  there 
was  an  ancient  record  in  their  archives  which  con- 
veyed to  an  estranged  generation,  with  tremendous 
power,  the  sense  of  their  being  in  covenant  with, 
and  so  under  law  to,  God.  The  revival  was 
marked  by  no  new  forms,  but,  as  in  Ezra's  day,  by 
stern  allegiance  in  word  and  deed  to  an  old  law. 
Reforms  were  carried  out  in  the  line  of  the  law. 
And  the  central  memorial  of  the  old  deliverance 
became  the  seal  of  the  new  reformation.  What 
could  the  book  be  but,  in  substance  at  least,  the 
Pentateuch.'*  The  critical  hypothesis  then  going 
by  the  board,  in  this  leading  position,  the  tradi- 
tional view  remains. 

Let   us  travel  back  another    140   years  to  the 


S6     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

times  of  Amos  and  Hosea,  about  750  b.c.  Judah 
and  Israel  are  both  standing.  The  latter  is  enjoy- 
ing a  period  of  splendid  prosperity  under  the 
second  Jeroboam.  Here  we  are  at  the  very 
beginning  of  written  prophecy,  looking  up  the 
troubled  streams  of  the  divided  kingdom.  Accord- 
ing to  Professor  Smith,  as  we  have  just  seen,  to 
the  very  verge  of  this  period  the  religion  of 
Israel  was  "  polytheism,  with  an  opportunity  for 
monotheism  at  the  heart  of  it."  How  can  we 
explain,  if  that  be  so,  the  sublime  ethical  mono- 
theism of  Amos ;  the  tender,  holy,  brooding  love 
of  God  in  Hosea  ?  That  is  an  insuperable  difficulty. 
But  we  defer  further  consideration  of  this  point 
till  we  can  take  the  critical  reconstruction  as  a 
whole,  and  show  its  incurable  weaknesses,  not 
only  at  this  but  many  other  points. 

Note  these  facts :  Both  prophets,  directly  or  by 
implication,  refer  to  Jerusalem  as  the  central  seat 
of  worship.  Israel  is  in  sin,  having  broken  with 
this  central  worship.  There  was  a  written  law 
which  they  had  ignored,  and  the  precepts  in- 
cidentally referred  to  are  not  confined  to  Exodus 
xx.-xxiii.,  the  earliest  fragment,  but  range  over  all 
the  codes.  The  living  beginnings  of  the  nation's 
history  are  traced  back  to  Egypt,  to  deliverance 
from  captivity.  And  most  vividly  of  all  do  the 
prophets  realise  that,  in  a  sense  peculiar  and 
exclusive,  Israel    is   the  covenant  people  of  God. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  ^^ 

From  that  far-off  beginning  they  have  been  in  that 
relation  under  the  law  of  Jehovah ;  ''  but  they 
have  transgressed  My  covenant  and  trespassed 
against  My  law."  The  standpoint  of  the  prophets 
is  the  reverse  of  what  modern  criticism  avers. 
They  do  not  speak  as  to  a  people  slowly  rising 
from  polytheism  to  monotheism,  but  are  roused  by 
the  spectacle  of  long-continued  national  degeneracy 
from  a  glorious  condition  of  covenant  fellowship 
with  God. 

You  simply  cannot  understand  prophecy,  unless 
you  realise  the  unspeakable  reverence  of  all  the 
prophets  for  the  entrance  of  God  in  promise  and 
condition  into  the  dawn  of  their  history.  That 
gives  the  note  to  their  unparalleled  expostulations, 
the  ethical  spirit  to  their  teaching,  the  pivot  from 
which,  leaning  on  the  faithfulness  of  God,  they  go 
out  to  anticipate  coming  good.  "  You  only  have 
I  known  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  there- 
fore will  I  punish  you  for  all  your  iniquities,"  said 
Amos,  thrilled  with  the  sense  of  his  people's 
peculiar  destiny.  Hosea  rises  higher,  seeing  this 
union  of  Israel  with  God  in  the  light  of  a  marriage, 
the  holiest,  tenderest,  most  exacting  covenant  of 
earth;  and  disobedience  as  whoredom — the  bestial 
violation  of  a  covenant  with  God  as  holy,  tender, 
and  obligatory  as  the  marriage  covenant  among 
men.  Think  of  the  prophet  himself,  with  bruised 
affections,   desecrated  home,   married   to  a  harlot. 


58     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

that  he  might  be  a  living  parable  to  all  the 
people  of  the  dishonour  which  God  suffered  at 
their  hands. 

How  can  writings  like  these  be  made  consistent 
with  the  theory  of  a  slow  growth  upwards  on  the 
part  of  Israel  out  of  conditions  hardly  discernible 
from  those  of  the  people  around  ? 

The  point  of  this  evidence  is  not  simply  that 
there  were  laws,  written  laws,  laws  in  such  number 
as  not  to  be  consonant  with  the  new  theory  ;  nor 
yet  that  there  had  been  degeneracy  instead  of 
progress ;  but  this — even  our  contention — that 
there  had  been  a  unique  creative  revelation, 
ringed  round  by  statute,  controlling  the  whole 
subsequent  history ;  if  only  (through  their  sin) 
in  the  direction  of  affixing  a  special  guiltiness,  and 
bringing  down  a  certain  penalty. 

And  now  to  bring  our  long  argument  to  a  close. 
Look  back  over  three  great  crises  in  the  history  of 
the  Hebrews — the  age  of  Ezra,  the  age  of  Josiah, 
the  age  of  Amos  and  Hosea.  Here  we  are  on 
unquestioned  ground  of  history.  What  do  we 
find,  then,  in  those  three  periods,  covering  more 
than  three  hundred  years  ^ 

We  find,  beyond  question,  that  this  history 
cannot  be  brought  by  any  twisting  into  natural 
lines.  You  may,  without  evidence,  turn  all  the 
splendour  of  Exodus  into  legend.     You  may  spare 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  59 

no  effort  to  reduce  the  history  to  natural  measures. 
But  one  thing  you  cannot  dissipate  from  the  living 
consciousness  of  the  Hebrew  people :  that  they 
stand  in  a  peculiar  relation  to  God — have  stood 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  everything  excep- 
tional in  their  history  owes  origin  to  that  fact. 
That  stands,  that  is  justified  by  all  known  circum- 
stances. Even  though  the  Pentateuch  had  been 
lost  we  should  have  had  to  suppose  some  such 
specialty  of  cause  for  such  an  effect.  And  though 
we  had  no  further  scrap  of  evidence — and  we 
have  much,  as  we  shall  afterwards  see — no  un- 
biassed literary  critic,  simply  looking  at  the  facts, 
would  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  take  the  Pentateuch 
for  what  it  professes  to  be — a  credible  account  of 
the  self-revelation  of  God,  and  the  beginning  of 
the  Jewish  nation  in  covenant  with  Him. 

That  is  what  I  mean  by  the  unbroken  strength 
of  the  traditional  view.  It  is  unbroken  in  the 
main  piers  of  its  strength.  The  considerations 
which  we  have  advanced  are  as  pillars  of  Hercules 
compared  with  the  light  and  airy  structures  of 
hypothesis,  which  all  rest  for  their  validity  on  a 
foundation  of  theory  as  baseless  as  themselves. 

Take  two  facts,  of  great  significance,  as  con- 
firmations of  our  position.  For  a  hundred  years, 
in  ever-increasing  numbers,  we  have  had  acute 
experts  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  establish 
their  hypothesis.     Yet  these  two  things  are  true  : 


6o     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Outside  their  theory — which  is  on  its  trial,  and 
cannot  yet  be  taken  in  evidence — they  have  not 
found  one  objective  fact  which  makes  impossible 
the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Pentateuch.  Again, 
outside  their  theory  they  have  found  no  scrap  of 
independent  testimony  to  unearth  the  supposed 
redactors  or  compilers  of  the  history,  or  to  prove 
at  any  single  point  that  the  stages  of  the  critical 
theory  were  the  real  stages  at  which  piece  by  piece 
the  Pentateuch  was  built  up.  "  The  earth  helped 
the  woman  "  :  ^  but  facts  and  time  are  not  on  the 
critics'  side. 

Having  travelled  thus  far,  however,  we  wish  to 
bring  in  certain  supports  of  the  traditional  theory 
which  come  from  archeology,  from  the  very 
failures  of  criticism,  and  from  the  science  of 
religions  in  its  present  stage  of  development. 
These  are  of  a  very  remarkable  kind,  and  destined 
to  increase ;  so  that  we  have  the  fullest  warrant 
for  speaking  of  the  growing  strength  of  the  tradi- 
tional review.  Allow  us  to  summarise  evidences 
whose  true  proportions  and  value  could  only  be  seen 
if  they  were  stated  on  a  more  extensive  scale. 

Amid  the  number  of  small  circumstances  which 
have  been  alleged  against  the  historical  character 
of  the  Pentateuch,  two  have  seemed  to  us  to  be 
of  weight.  If  a  history  so  wonderful  had  been 
handed    down    for    several    generations     by    oral 

1  Revelation  xii.   i6. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  6i 

tradition  before  being  committed  to  writing,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  rebut  the  charge  of  exagger- 
ation and  legend  creeping  in.  Then,  also,  the 
argument  so  strongly  put  by  the  late  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  could  not  but  impress  one.  If 
Israel  started,  as  in  the  Pentateuch,  with  a  recog- 
nised ritual  system,  why  does  that  system  remain 
virtually  a  dead  letter  till  after  the  exile  ? 

The  former  difficulty  is  now  entirely  cleared 
away.  The  latter,  after  all,  is  only  a  difficulty,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  to  a  poor,  external,  and  far  too 
limited  view  of  Old  Testament  revelation. 

In  view  of  present  knowledge,  there  is  no 
barrier  whatever  to  accepting  as  historical  the 
statement  in  Deut.  xxxi.  9 :  "  And  Moses  wrote 
this  law,  and  delivered  it  to  the  priests,  the  sons  of 
Levi " ;  nor  the  actuality  of  the  injunction  at  verse 
II,  to  "read  this  law  before  all  Israel  in  their 
hearing"  at  the  end  of  every  seven  years.  Pro- 
fessor Sayce  says :  ''  The  age  of  Moses  was  a 
literary  age,  the  lands  which  witnessed  the  Exodus 
and  the  conquest  of  Canaan  were  literary  lands ; 
and  literature  had  flourished  in  them  for  number- 
less generations  before."  ^ 

Of  course  we  would  like  to  know  a  great  deal 
more.  In  what  form  were  these  books  left,  in 
what  language  written .?  Who  added  the  closing 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  and  guarded  these  Scrip- 

1  "  Lex  Mosaica,"  p.  17. 


62     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

tures  from  generation  to  generation  ?  Not  that 
there  is  no  later  reference  to  them.  They  were 
there  to  be  used  by  Joshua  on  great  occasions. 
Xhere  are  numerous  quotations  from  and  corres- 
pondences with  all  parts  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the 
book  which  goes  by  this  leader's  name.  So  there 
is  no  reason  for  our  ignorance  to  ferment  into 
suspicion.  On  many  literary  and  historical  ques- 
tions we  have  just  to  take  what  we  can  find,  and 
confess  our  ignorance  where  great  gaps  come  in. 

But  there  are  positive  indications  which  are  all 
in  favour  of  the  traditional  view.  Some  critics 
would  disintegrate  the  Hebrew  history  utterly. 
They  will  not  allow  the  unity  of  the  nation. 
They  suppose  that  the  tribes  came  swarming  over 
Jordan  at  several  times.  Professor  George  Adam 
Smith  contends  for  the  unity  of  the  nation  and  the 
single  crossing.  But  he,  in  his  turn,  gratuitously 
conceives  of  them  as  rude  tribesmen,  who  might 
have  remained  ignorant  of  writing,  although  it 
was  known  in  all  the  nations  around.  Critics  are 
very  insensible  to  the  significance  of  their  own 
admissions.  They  admit  the  historical  reality  of 
Moses,  the  captivity  in  Egypt,  the  escape,  and  the 
fact  that  Israel  received  at  that  time  and  from 
that  leader  religious  inspiration,  in  a  vivid  concep- 
tion of  God,  which  made  them  what  they  were ; 
but  they  try  to  flatten  this  down  to  something 
rude,  naturalistic,  fragmentary.     Their  anxiety  is 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  6^ 

to  get  the  history  into  line  with  their  view  of  the 
development  of  religions ;  and  they  touch  the 
spiritual,  the  creative  element  (which  they  halt- 
ingly admit)  in  a  very  uncertain  way,  as  if  it  were 
an  infusion  or  tincture  which  they  may  inject  or 
withdraw  at  pleasure. 

If  they  admit,  however,  the  least  possible  idea 
of  Jehovah,  they  are  admitting  a  new  order  of 
thought  on  a  level  far  removed  from  all  heathen 
conceptions.'  As  men  have  tried  to  imagine  a 
regular  advance  from  the  not-Hving  to  the  Hving, 
so  some  would  have  us  suppose  a  development 
from  animism  to  Jehovah ;  but  it  is  an  impious 
dream.  The  barriers  between  the  not-living  and 
the  living,  and  between  matter  and  mind,  are  as 
nothing,  to  the  infinite  gulf  between  the  frog- 
spawn  of  heathen  imagination  and  the  very  earliest 
dawning  of  a  true  thought  of  God. 

Granted,  then,  such  a  creative  thought,  we  are 
bound,  in  view  of  all  the  fresh  light  thrown  upon 
that  far-off  age,  to  conceive  the  most  fitting  con- 
ditions of  its  manifestation.  That  was  not  a  rude 
time,  but  an  era  of  great  empires,  high  material 
civilisation,  brisk  movement,  and  vast  political 
complications.  But  along  with  this  material 
development  there  was  a  singular  lack.  In  one 
way  the  age  of  the  second  Rameses  was  like  the 
age  of  Tiberias :  with  vast  material  resources  there 
was  an  utter  bankruptcy  of  ideals.     The  earlier 


64     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

was  even  more  hopelessly  empty  of  every  redeem- 
ing element  than  the  later  age.  Sailing  up  the 
Nile  as  far  as  Assouan,  and  visiting  every  famous 
site,  we  were  oppressed  with  the  blind  and  blatant 
egotism  written  broad  in  sculpture  and  inscription. 
That  older  world  was  on  the  verge  of  collapse  as 
really  as  the  Roman  world  of  Paul  and  John. 

If,  then,  as  even  many  critics  admit,  there  did 
strike  in  a  new  transfiguring  conception  of  Jehovah 
at  this  time,  it  is  far  more  reasonable  to  conceive 
that  that  came  on  the  scale  and  in  the  manner 
taught  us  in  the  Pentateuch,  with  commanding 
power  and  with  a  light  and  warning  for  Egypt  and 
surrounding  nations  as  well  as  for  Israel.  In 
comparison  with  the  harmony  of  contemporary 
fact  subsequent  tradition  and  Scripture,  supporting 
the  truth  of  a  great  creative  revelation,  the 
gratuitous  assumptions  of  the  critics  deserve  no 
credence.  But,  further,  if  the  narrative  of  Exodus 
be  restored  to  our  belief,  if  God  broke  the  power 
of  Egypt,  and,  setting  Israel  free  by  His  wonderful 
might,  revealed  Himself  on  Sinai,  then,  to  keep 
alive  these  transitory  if  overwhelming  impressions, 
there  must  have  been  a  covenant  to  bind  the 
people  to  God  and  a  law  to  enforce  that  covenant. 
And  so  a  new  probability  attaches  to  the  belief 
that  all  three  codes  in  their  order  were  very  special 
means  devised  by  Moses,  under  the  guiding  of 
God,   to  meet  a  sublime   emergency.      The  idea 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  63 

that  the  Pentateuchal  legislation  consisted  of  a 
series  of  summaries  of  oral  laws  drawn  up  at 
different  dates,  but  in  late  ages,  is  not  a  success. 
Wellhausen  tried  to  reconstruct  the  steps  by  which 
such  laws  grew  and  accumulated,  but  his  views, 
which  are  speculative  and  naturalistic,  have  little 
inherent  probability,  and  have  been  ably  met. 

The  fact  is,  there  never  was  such  a  system  of 
oral  law.  A  critic  like  Schultz  confesses  that  the 
laws  are  a  whole.  ''  Everything  is  of  a  piece, 
from  the  most  trifling  commandment  regarding 
outward  cleanliness  up  to  the  fundamental  thoughts 
of  the  moral  law."  "  The  whole  is  woven  into  a 
splendid  unity,  into  the  thought  that  this  people 
should  represent  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth, 
and  realise  in  its  national  life  the  main  features  of 
the  Divine  order  of  things."  ^  And  that  being  so,  it 
is  far  more  reasonable  to  maintain  that  that  ideal 
unity  was  the  immediate  impress  of  a  Divine 
revelation,  breathing  through  the  whole  a  Divine 
spirit,  than  to  suppose  it  was  the  result  of  a  con- 
coction, nobody  knows  when,  by  nobody  knows 
whom,  save  that  they  must  have  been  imaginative 
artists  working  on  a  basis  of  crude  traditional  law. 

We  shall  reserve  what  we  intend  to  say  in  defence 
of  the  Mosaic  legislation,  as  against  the  argument 
derived  from  its  alleged  inoperativeness,  and  pro- 
ceed   at   once   to   a   positive   confirmation    of   the 

1  "  Old  Testament  Theology,"  vol.  i.  p.  138. 
£ 


66     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

traditional  view,  the  immense  importance  of  which 
we  cannot,  perhaps,  at  once  discern. 

The   Higher   Criticism,   after   saiHng   the   high 
seas    striking    terror    into     peaceful    souls,     and 
hesitating  not  to  sink  every  barque  that  showed 
fight  with  the  shafts  of  contempt  and  the  shot  of 
assertion,    is   finding  herself   in    troubled   waters. 
She  has  been  sacrificing  everything  to  a  so-called 
science,  i.e.,  to  a  theory  of  the  growth  of  religion, 
thoroughly  naturalistic,  which  presupposed  that  all 
religions,  Israel's  included,  passed  through  certain 
stages  from  the  lowest  forms  up  through  fetishism 
and  animism  to  the  high  gods.     As  men  grew  up 
from  rude  beginnings  into  tribes  and  nations,  so 
their  ideas  of  their  gods  expanded  likewise.     This 
theory    had   never    been    fully    accepted.      There 
were  facts   which  did  not    fit    into    the    scheme. 
Still  it  had  the  fascination  of  a  seeming  natural 
evolution,  and  so  won  a  wide  popularity.     Sober 
theologians   drew    pictures    of  Divine    inspiration 
coming   first    through    myth    and    legend.      Even 
before,   however,   the   Higher   Criticism    has   dis- 
posed   her    forces    and    appeared    to    claim    the 
allegiance  of  the  Churches,  she  has  been  deserted 
by  the   science  for  which    she    has    sacrificed   so 
much.      At    least    she    cannot    allege    to-day    the 
support  of  an  undisputed  scientific  belief 

There  is  a  great  array  of  facts  to  prove  that  at 
one  point — and  that  a  fundamental  one — anthro- 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  ^^ 

pologists  like  Dr  Tylor  have  not  gone  with  the 
evidence.  The  progress  is  not  one  of  development 
from  lower  to  higher.  A  great  number  of  the 
most  primitive  savages  retain  belief  in  a  Supreme 
Being,  and  deathless,  immortal  Fathers  in  heaven. 
"Between  them  and  apotheosised  mortal  ancestors 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed — the  river  of  death.  "^ 
Indeed,  Andrew  Lang,  whom  we  have  just  been 
quoting,  says  at  page  2 1 1  of  the  same  treatise :  "  It 
is  among  the  '  lowest  savages  '  that  the  Supreme 
Beings  are  most  regarded  as  eternal,  moral  (as  the 
morality  of  the  tribe  goes,  or  even  on  a  higher 
level),  powerful."  Just,  however,  because  they 
are  good  they  have  been  neglected,  and  a  swarm 
of  fetishistic,  animistic  ideas  have  taken  their  place 
and  fill  the  foreground  of  their  minds.  This  is 
proved,  not  from  one  tribe  but  from  many,  in 
widely  sundered  parts  of  the  world.  There  are 
traces  of  high  gods  among  peoples  which  are 
utterly  undeveloped.  These  lofty  conceptions 
cannot,  according  to  the  naturalistic  theory,  be 
owing  to  advancing  civilisation,  for  they  have 
none.  Then  there  are  other  tribes  in  whom  the 
earlier  and  purer  belief  is  almost  swamped  in  later 
fetishism,  though  traces  still  remain.  Indeed 
missionaries  have  remarked  that  in  times  of  great 
dread  the  most  craven  heathen  becomes  a  virtual 
monotheist. 

1  "Making  of  Religion,"  p.  206, 


68      THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

To  what  does  all  this  point,  then,  but  to  a 
theory  widely  different  from  that  of  our  critics  and 
a  host  of  anthropologists  in  our  time  ?  With  Von 
Hartmann,  De  Rouge  Renouf,  Lang,  and  others  we 
come  to  see  that  fetishism  and  animism  are  processes 
of  decay.  In  man  there  is  an  original,  indestructible 
sense  of  God.  According  to  Paul's  statement,  "  the 
invisible  things  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  made."^  The  traces  of  a 
primitive  monotheism  in  China,  Egypt,  and  else- 
where, though  they  have  been  made  light  of  by 
dominant  theory,  are  fact.  Myth,  legend,  fetishism 
and  animism,  which  have  been  very  rashly  regarded 
as  the  early  soil  of  revelation,  turn  out  to  be  early 
stages  of  disease  and  degeneracy,  from  the  clear, 
if  limited,  perception  of  God,  with  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  evidence  of  science  no  less  than 
revelation,  man  began. 

Now  all  this  throws  a  wonderful  light  on  the 
problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  We  do  not 
know  when  we  have  been  more  impressed  than  by 
reading  in  Mr  Lang's  ''Myth,  Ritual,  and  Re- 
ligion," the  evidence  in  detail  that  right  round 
the  world,  among  civilised  peoples  like  the  Greeks 
and  among  the  rudest  tribes,  these  steps  of  de- 
generacy have  common  characters — here  relieved 
by  talent,  there  darkened  by  ignorance,  but  funda- 
mentally similar.     There  is  just  one  nation  among 

1  Rom.  i.  20. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  69 

all  peoples  where  the  well-marked  traces  of  this 
degeneracy  are  not  to  be  found.  Critics  have  done 
all  they  can  to  find  them  there.  They  have  re- 
solved, as  we  believe,  history  into  myth,  to  bring 
Israel  into  line  with  the  universal  tendency ;  but 
even  with  these  assertions  in  their  mouths  they 
must  confess  the  profound  separation  of  Israel  from 
all  other  nations. 

What,  then,  is  the  irresistible  inference  but  this, 
— and  so  the  Old  Testament  is  placed  on  an  ex- 
ternal pedestal  of  glory  which  it  never  reached 
before — that  while  in  all  other  nations  this  de- 
generacy went  on,  in  one  family  God  laid  an 
arrest  on  the  downward  drift,  called  Abraham, 
shielded  his  descendants,  and  in  due  time  led  them 
from  captivity,  under  Moses,  to  be  His  covenant 
people,  with  whom  the  one  hope  of  man,  the  seed 
of  salvation  for  the  whole  race,  was  to  be  found  ? 

In  what  a  commanding  position  does  this  view 
place  Israel  in  relation  to  the  eight  hundred  millions 
of  heathen  still  to  be  brought  in.  Here  in  Israel 
was  the  dawn  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  germ 
of  all  to  which  it  has  developed.  What  could 
make  these  hopes  a  living  issue  amid  the  degener- 
acies of  animism  and  the  lustfulness  of  empire  but 
such  a  wonderful  theophany  as  that  of  which  Scrip- 
ture speaks?  To  a  primitive  people,  delivered 
from  the  slavery  of  centuries,  what  could  make 
appeal,  but  just   such  outward   manifestations    of 


70     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

favour,  accompanied  by  a  moral  discipline  ringing 
life  round  and  round  ;  and  a  sacrificial  system  ad- 
mitting return  and  restoration  to  God  ?  Amid  the 
universal  trend  downward  of  the  whole  world, 
need  we  wonder  if  for  long  the  revelation  through 
Moses  was  only  fragmentarily  realised  ?  One  thing 
is  certain :  law  or  no  law,  sacrifice  or  no  sacrifice, 
the  Mosaic  type  of  belief,  elevation  of  character, 
and  moral  submission  to  God,  amid  a  thousand 
failures,  held  their  ground  in  the  select  spirits  of 
the  race.  They  were  not  like  other  men.  There 
were  none  like  them  in  that  ancient  world.  They 
were  in  a  sense  "  all  baptized  unto  Moses  in  the 
cloud  and  in  the  sea."  ^  They  bear  the  stamp  of  a 
unique  destiny,  and  their  perpetual  going  back  to 
realise  a  past  ideal  is  proof  to  us  that  they  had  a 
great  creative  beginning  in  their  history  such  as 
the  Pentateuch  describes. 

Such,  briefly  considered,  is  the  evidence  from 
ancient  record  and  modern  research  for  the  tradi- 
tional view  of  the  Pentateuch.  It  may  not  be  so 
much  as  we  would  like,  but  surely  it  is  sufficient ; 
and  tim^  has  been  adding  to,  rather  than  detracting 
fr9m,  its  volume. 

There  never  was  a  day,  then,  when  there  was 
less  need  for  a  violent  hypothesis  to  account  for 
the  origin  of  Scripture.  This  view  harmonises 
with  the  faith  of  Christendom,  the  internal  unity  of 

1  I  Cor.  X.  2. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  71 

Holy  Scripture,  its  character  as  revelation,  and  its 
place  and  influence  in  the  world.  We  can  think  but 
of  one  objection  :  it  presupposes  the  supernatural 
and  allows  of  miracle.  We  shall  now  have  to 
look  at  the  critical  hypothesis  which  claims  to 
have  ousted  this,  and  in  the  next  two  chapters  we 
shall  subject  it  to  a  necessarily  brief,  but  honest, 
examination. 


Ill 


IS  THE  CRITICAL  HYPOTHESIS  VALID? 
CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM 

John  V.  39  :   "  They  are  they  which  testify  of  Me." 

We  have  seen  that  not  a  little  can  be  said  for  the 
traditional  view  on  external  and  critical  grounds. 
Though  there  are  gaps  in  the  evidence,  and  many 
questions  to  which  we  naturally  desire  answers 
that  have  none  forthcoming,  yet  if  we  take  the 
trend  of  historical  testimony  briefly  sketched  in  the 
last  chapter,  and  compare  that  with  the  unity  of 
thought  and  purpose  pervading  the  Old  Testament, 
we  can  have  little  doubt  that  the  received  view  of 
the  origin  of  the  Pentateuch  is  the  true  one. 
Indeed,  we  believe  that  if  there  were  nothing 
exceptional  in  this  literature  —  no  miraculous 
element,  no  claim  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
God — the  proof  would  not  have  been  seriously 
contested. 

However  that  may  be,  the  Church  of  Christ  is 
face  to  face  with  an  elaborate  hypothesis  of  the 
origin  of  Scripture  which  not  only  goes  away  from, 
but   contradicts   tradition.       This    hypothesis    has 


CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM  ^'t^- 

been  slowly  elaborated  by  many  minds,  from 
Astruc  and  Geddes  to  our  own  time  ;  and,  though 
not  without  violent  transformations,  and  even 
boxing  the  compass  of  possible  solutions,  it  stands 
out  in  certain  main  outlines  to  which,  with  indi- 
vidual differences,  the  great  body  of  critics  give 
adhesion.  This  outline  we  have  already  stated 
more  than  once,  and  shall  have  to  recall  later  in 
this  chapter.  Our  present  business,  however,  is 
to  arrange  the  method  on  which  we  are  to  pro- 
ceed. Before  we  attempt  to  draw  conclusions,  let 
us  rnake  sure  that  we  understand  the  situation. 
Many  things — assertions  of  critics  and  the  vague 
terrors  of  many  humble  believers — show  that  an 
utterly  confused  and  erroneous  view  of  the 
problem  to  be  solved  has  taken  possession  of 
men's  minds. 

For  instance,  it  has  got  into  the  thoughts  not 
only  of  laymen,  but  of  a  great  number  of  ministers, 
as  it  is  certainly  the  opinion  of  the  higher  critics 
themselves,  that  we  can  only  get  rid  of  the  Higher 
Criticism  by  positively  disproving  all  their  posi- 
tions, and  showing  the  untenableness  of  all  their 
disintegrating  processes — in  a  word,  driving  them 
off  the  field.  And  as  we  hear  voice  answering  to 
voice  over  the  immeasurable  battlefield,  and  look 
at  the  immense  earthworks  bristling  with  every 
variety  of  ordnance  brought  up  by  learning  in 
defence   of  the  critical  position,   we  might   think 


74     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  battle  as  good  as  lost.  There  has  hardly 
been  such  a  situation  since  Rabshakeh  expounded 
the  programme  of  Sennacherib  at  the  gate  of 
Jerusalem.  Still,  that  destroying  wave  was  arrested 
and  broken  ;  and  when  the  whole  world  wondered 
to  see  Jerusalem  standing,  Isaiah  gave  the  answer : 
"The  Lord  hath  founded  Zion,  and  the  poor  of 
His  people  shall  trust  in  it.''^ 

The  situation  is  very  different  from  what  both 
friends  and  foes  have  believed.  The  burden  of 
proof  rests  not  with  the  Church  but  with  criticism. 
But  more  than  that,  the  burden  of  proof  is  of  a 
very  exacting  and  onerous  kind.  The  Church 
exists  as  a  fact  in  this  world,  living  by  spiritual 
energies ;  and  through  that  life  flowing  into  her 
from  the  Unseen  has  become  the  mightiest  single 
force  in  the  world.  The  Scriptures,  authenticated 
as  Divine  by  their  results,  have  been  the  organ 
through  which  God  has  spoken  to  successive 
generations,  the  instrument  by  which  unnumbered 
millions  have  been  nurtured  in  life  eternal.  And 
as  we  have  seen,  Scripture  has  a  self-witness  not 
only  to  her  unity  but  as  to  the  steps  and  order  of 
her  own  growth.  And  the  Church,  which  has 
been  the  nurse  of  intellectual  freedom,  has  grown 
up  within  the  dome  of  that  common  consciousness 
for  eighteen  hundred  years. 

To  her,  however,  in  these  last  days  there  has 

1  Isaiah  xiv.  32. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  ys 

come  a  challenge.  The  Higher  Criticism  has 
declared  that  we  cannot  any  longer  accept  the 
self-witness  of  revelation  as  historically  true. 
Things  did  not  turn  out,  we  are  told,  as  the  Bible 
describes  them  to  have  done,  but  in  very  different 
fashion.  What  answer  has  the  Church  been 
giving  to  that  challenge  ?  The  only  right  one. 
Standing  by  Scripture,  which  she  knows  to  be 
informed  by  one  spirit,  and  to  contain  one  ever- 
growing revelation  of  God,  she  is  ready  for  what- 
ever discovery  science  may  bring.  Truth  is  one, 
and  historical  fact  will  never  be  found  to  contradict 
spiritual  reality. 

The  Evangelical  Church  then  says — in  counter 
challenge — What  facts  have  you  in  support  of 
your  assertion  ?  The  Higher  Criticism  answers  : 
We  do  not  rely  much  on  facts.  True,  there  are 
the  evidences  of  the  use  of  documents  in  Genesis 
— a  fact  which  impressed  Astruc.  There  are 
double  accounts  of  events  imbedded  in  the  narra- 
tives and  expressions,  here  and  there,  gathered 
with  great  diligence  by  Dr  Robertson  Smith, 
which  seem  to  be  out  of  keeping  with  the 
received  views  of  the  origin  of  the  books  of 
Scripture.  Prompted  by  these,  and  such-like  diffi- 
culties and  discoveries,  we  have,  in  accordance 
with  the  most  recent  knowledge,  drawn  up  a 
theory  as  to  how  Scripture  may  be  supposed  to 
have  taken  origin.      And  it  is  this  theoretical  view, 


^6     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

supported  by  such  evidence  as  we  have  collected" 
in  its  favour,  v^hich  we  ask  you  to  accept.  In  the 
opinion  of  some  of  us  this  theory  destroys  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  a  revelation, 
but  many  of  us,  though  agreeing  with  the  others, 
can  still  allow  an  element  of  religion,  yea,  even  of 
revelation,  in  what  remains  after  criticism  has  done 
its  work.  At  least,  God's  personal  presence  in 
Israel  seems  to  Professor  George  Adam  Smith, 
dispassionately  judging,  the  most  natural  and 
scientific  explanation. 

The  challenge  of  the  Higher  Criticism  therefore 
comes  in  the  form  of  a  hypothesis  or  theory,  or 
more  plainly  still,  supposition.  Now  do  not  mis- 
take, as  if  we  regarded  this  to  be  an  objection. 
Hypothesis  is  a  recognised  method  of  science.  As 
John  Stuart  Mill  says  :  "  It  is  allowable,  useful,  and 
often  e\en  necessary  to  begin  by  asking  ourselves 
what  cause  may  have  produced  the  effect,  in  order 
that  we  may  know  in  what  direction  to  look  out 
for  evidence  to  determine  whether  it  actually  did."  ^ 
Scientific  men  use  hypotheses  continually.  Often- 
times they  could  not  deal  with  the  simplest  facts  if 
they  did  not  begin  by  conjecturing  what  may  have 
been  the  cause,  and  then  see  whether  their  theory 
fits  into  the  facts.  The  great  astronomer  Kepler 
formed  nineteen  erroneous  hypotheses  about  the 
orbit  of  the  planets  before  he  hit  on  the  true  view, 

^    "System  of  Logic,"  vol.  ii.  j),  lo. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  ^^ 

that  it  was  an  ellipse.  Hypotheses  are  found  in 
all  degrees  of  strength.  Some  have  risen  to  the 
dignity  of  demonstration,  like  Newton's  theory  of 
the  planetary  motions.  Some  are  in  suspense, 
with  a  larger  or  smaller  preponderance  of  opinion 
in  their  favour,  like  the  theories  of  light.  A 
great  many  have  been  thrown  aside  as  void 
and  vain. 

This  subject  of  what  constitutes  a  valid  hypo- 
thesis has  been  thoroughly  discussed  by  logicians. 
They  have  put  to  themselves  the  question :  When 
can  a  hypothesis  be  fairly  regarded  as  proved  ? 
And  they  have  laid  down  their  rules  with  exact- 
ness. Those  who  wish  to  see  the  subject  dis- 
cussed could  not  do  better  than  turn  to  the 
section  of  Mr  Stuart  Mill's  treatise  on  logic  to 
which  we  have  referred.  There  is  also  a  briefer, 
but  illuminative  discussion  in  Lotze's  "  Logic."  ^ 
Allow  us  just  one  remark  before  stating  these 
conditions.  When  masters  of  mental  science 
deal  with  this  subject  of  hypothesis,  they  turn 
their  thoughts  to  natural  science,  and  draw  their 
illustrations  from  that  interesting  field.  The 
problems  there  are  simpler,  and  the  laws  more 
exact  and  obvious.  Hypothesis  in  human  affairs 
has,  in  comparison,  a  far  narrower  range,  and 
has  met  with  more  failure  than  success.  Wolf's 
attempt     to    disintegrate    Homer    has    not    been 

^  Translated  by  Bosanquet,  Clarendon  Press. 


78     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

sustained.  Niebuhr's  theory  that  the  old  Roman 
history  was  derived  from  popular  ballads  has  been 
set  aside.  Baur's  tendency  theory  of  a  conflict 
between  Petrinism  and  Paulinism  in  the  primitive 
Church,  with  the  inferences  thence  arising  as  to 
the  origin  of  Acts  and  the  Epistles,  no  longer 
commands  belief.  In  a  region  so  lofty,  dealing 
with  a  nature  so  complex  as  that  of  man,  and 
endowed  with  such  undefined  possibilities,  we 
cannot  go  very  far  either  in  conjecturing  an 
unknown  past  or  forecasting  an  uncertain  future. 
Disraeli  has  enshrined  human  experience  in  his 
well-known  aphorism  :  "  It  is  the  unexpected 
that  happens." 

Turn  now  to  the  conditions  laid  down  by 
logicians  which  theory  or  hypothesis  must  fulfil 
in  order  to  be  valid.  "  Every  hypothesis  is 
meant  to  be  an  account  of  a  fact,"  a  statement 
of  "  the  concrete  causes,  forces,  processes  out 
of  which,"  in  this  case,  the  Old  Testament  arose. 
Now,  manifestly,  it  must  meet  all  the  facts  of 
the  case.  The  critical  theory,  for  instance,  must 
account  in  every  detail  for  the  origin  of  the  Old 
Testament ;  and  not  only  how  it  came  to  be  at 
all,  but  how  it  came  to  have  such  a  place  and 
hold  such  an  influence.  That  then  is  the  first 
rule. 

But  that  is  not  enough.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
you  were  seeking  the   explanation  of  some  facts 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM 


79 


whose  cause  was  unknown,  say,  for  example,  the 
depressing  and  deleterious  quality  of  the  east 
wind.  A  scientist  might  come  to  you  with  an 
alleged  cause  that  seemed  to  account  for  every 
element  in  the  case,  and  you  might  just  be  on 
the  point  of  saying :  Yes,  that  is  the  cause, 
when  another  comes  with  a  different  explanation ; 
and  lo  !  it  also  accounts  for  everything.  What 
are  you  to  do  in  a  case  of  that  kind  ^  See  which 
is  best  supported  by  observed  facts.  Indeed  a 
hypothesis — especially  when  it  supposes  an  un- 
known cause  —  cannot  be  regarded  as  proved 
unless  it  find,  in  actual  reality,  independent  sup- 
port of  its  explanation. 

But  we  have  yet  to  state  the  highest  proof 
of  the  truth  of  a  hypothesis.  Let  us  return  for 
an  example  to  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  theory.  He 
sought  to  account  for  the  planetary  motions  by  the 
principle  of  attraction  or  gravitation.  When  that 
law  seemed  to  account  for  everything,  astronomers 
began  to  reason  from  it  deductively.  They  said 
if  gravitation  be  a  reality,  it  will  explain  the 
tides;  and  it  did  explain  them.  When  our 
theory  becomes  a  key,  not  only  to  the  matter 
in  hand,  but  to  fact  after  fact  hitherto  unex- 
plained, then  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  a  true 
account  of  reality. 

To  many  readers  we  are  inclined  to  offer  an 
apology   for    lingering    so    long    over   what   must 


8o     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

appear  to  them  uninteresting  matter.  Perhaps, 
however,  they  will  take  our  word  that  this  labour 
is  essential.  Our  soldiers  in  South  Africa  often 
spent  the  whole  night  dragging  their  guns  with 
infinite  labour  into  position  on  some  lofty  hill. 
But  next  day  the  guns  saved  the  situation.  These 
points  which  we  have  been  laying  down  are  not 
our  private  opinion,  but  the  accepted  rules  current 
among  thinking  men,  by  which  they  test  all 
theories  on  all  sorts  of  subjects  which  come  up 
for  acceptance  or  rejection.  By  and  by  you  will 
see  that  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
critical  theory  lie  exposed  to  them.  You  will 
hear  their  projectiles  singing  in  the  air,  and  see 
them  falling  with  destructive  force  on  many  a 
proud  structure.  And  then  you  will  understand 
why  we  have  chosen  this  line  of  battle — because 
it  takes  the  enemy  in  front  and  shatters  his  main 
position.  There  are  no  movements  of  the  human 
spirit,  however  mistaken  in  the  main,  that  have 
not  been  overruled  to  produce  incidental  benefits 
and  individual  gains.  With  these  we  have  nothing 
now  to  do,  but  with  the  critical  theory  pressing 
a  destructive  view  of  Holy  Scripture  on  the 
Church,  whose  overthrow  they,  if  they  have  any 
independent  value  in  them,  may  survive. 

It  will  now  be  our  duty,  in  this  and  following 
chapters,  to  subject  this  critical  hypothesis  to 
those    tests    by   which    Logic    affirms    that    the 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  81 

validity  of  every  hypothesis  must  be  established. 
First  of  all,  we  are  extremely  anxious  to  bring 
out,  even  to  those  least  conversant  with  these 
subjects,  how  purely  hypothetical  this  whole 
critical  position  is.     And  for  two  reasons. 

We  are  struck  to  find  that  many  critics  are 
anxious  to  make  it  appear  that  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  naturalistic  assumptions,  but  are  just 
Bible  students,  discovering  through  their  expert 
knowledge  certain  results — which  it  is  for  them 
to  communicate  and  for  us  to  receive.  To  this 
we  answer :  Your  particular  bit  of  work  may  be 
of  the  simply  critical  and  detailed  character  you 
describe,  but  you  follow  the  lead  and  take  the 
cue  of  those  who  occupy  the  position  we  have 
described,  and  are  working  to  support  their  con- 
clusions. A  single  cog  in  a  wheel  has  simply  to 
bite  at  one  point  into  the  toothed  wheel  opposite. 
In  one  sense  its  single  duty  is  accurately  to  insert 
itself  and  hold  fast.  But  the  cog  is  on  a  wheel, 
and  behind  the  wheel  is  an  engine,  and  the  whole 
power  of  the  engine  is  going  through  that  cog  to 
move  the  machinery  of  the  mill.  And  so  each 
private  soldier  at  any  part  of  the  immense  line  of 
the  critical  attack  must  take  full  responsibihty  for 
the  movement  into  which  he  has  volunteered. 

But  we  have  a  further  reason.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  get  at  the  real  position  of  great 
questions    by    reason    of     the    popular    clamour 


82     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

about  them.  The  vast  reading  public  are  ever 
on  the  strain  for  what  is  new,  and  when  a  scholar 
or  a  thinker  tentatively  propounds  any  theory  at  all 
starthng  or  revolutionary,  they  seize  upon  this  new 
sensation,  assume  its  truth,  discuss  its  bearings, 
press  its  consequences,  and  cause  the  world  to 
ring  with  it,  before  men  competent  to  discuss  the 
subject  have  had  time  to  master  the  facts  and 
look  dispassionately  on  the  whole  case.  More 
than  that,  this  general  impression,  creating 
enthusiasm,  arousing  resistance,  brings  a  partisan 
spirit,  and  many  side  issues  into  the  controversy, 
which  make  it  difficult  even  for  competent  judges 
to  see  the  facts  as  they  are. 

Of  all  this  we  have  a  remarkable  example 
here.  Deferring  to  great  names  and  professional 
authority,  a  vast  number  have  assumed  that  debate 
is  at  an  end,  and  criticism  is  triumphant.  How 
profoundly  illogical  even  cultivated  men  may  be  is 
seen  in  this,  that  they  take  as  proved  a  mere 
theory  or  hypothesis,  or  supposition,  which  has 
not  yet  been  tested.  On  the  other  hand,  multi- 
tudes who  deprecate  criticism  are  filled  with  un- 
necessary fear.  As  there  are  King's  Courts  to 
investigate  every  charge  against  even  the  meanest 
of  his  subjects,  so  there  are  courts  of  reason  which 
the  greatest  array  of  authorities  in  the  world  cannot 
evade. 

It  is  a  surprise,  even  to  those  who  have  been 


CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM  83 

conversant  with  this  speculation  for  many  years, 
to  find  on  examination  nothing  but  suppositions ; 
and  more,  how  purely  gratuitous  many  of  the 
suppositions  are.     Let  us  show  this  in  some  detail. 

To  begin  with,  it  has  been  supposed  that 
the  accounts  of  the  creation  and  the  flood  are 
Babylonish  traditions  purified,  which  the  children 
of  Israel  learned  so  late  as  the  Exile,  and  intro- 
duced into  their  Scriptures.  Some,  however,  think 
that  these  traditions  may  have  come  in  through  a 
far  earlier  contact  with  Babylon,  in  the  beginning 
of  Israel's  history.  That  is  an  example  of  the  wide- 
ranging  hypotheses  characteristic  of  criticism. 

Again,  although  in  the  histories  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon  we  find  traces  of  masterful  men,  brimful 
of  great  ideas,  and  learn  that  all  over  the  East 
there  were  brisk  migratory  movements  toward 
the  West,  the  Higher  Criticism,  setting  aside 
the  portraits  of  spiritual  heroes  like  Abraham 
and  Jacob,  which  impress  us  as  the  finest  flower- 
ing of  just  such  an  era,  gratuitously  imagine 
another  condition  of  things  altogether.  They 
conceive  a  lower  civilisation,  a  dimmer  Hght, 
slower  movements,  a  less  tense  consciousness, 
which  allowed  for  the  growing  up  of  vague 
mythical  elements.  They  take  personal  characters 
which  have  powerfully  impressed  subsequent 
generations  to  be  legendary  personifications  of 
tribes — fictitious   efforts   to   account  for  the  geo- 


84     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

graphical  distribution  of  neighbouring  nations. 
This  again  is  hypothesis,  and  hypothesis  right 
in  the  face  of  a  narrative  which  in  any  case  is 
ancient,  and  embodies  a  still  more  ancient  tradi- 
tion, containing,  too,  an  account  more  in  keeping 
with  the  newest  unfoldings  of  that  far-off  time. 
If  Chedorlaomer  and  the  other  kings  who  joined 
him  in  the  sack  of  Sodom  stand  out  in  solid  reality, 
witnessed  to  by  Scripture  and  the  monuments, 
surely  characters  which  had  in  them  the  saving  salt 
of  holiness  and  moral  majesty  might  also  persist. 

Coming  down  to  the  Mosaic  age,  we  have  sup- 
position again — an  imaginary  picture  of  a  far  ruder 
condition  of  things  than  the  narrative  of  Exodus 
presents.  The  critics  cannot  deny  a  central  core 
of  fact.  Moses  was  the  true  founder  of  the  nation, 
and  the  real  beginnings  of  Israel's  peculiar  career 
are  to  be  found  in  his  age.  You  see  at  bottom 
they  cannot  find  any  explanation  but  what  we  find. 
But,  dealing  with  the  fact  according  to  a  priori 
ideas  of  their  own,  they  reduce  the  story  to 
natural  proportions.  In  a  word,  they  eliminate 
the  Divine  creative  element  out  of  the  books 
and  leave  a  natural  residuum.  Allowing  for  a 
germinating  conception  of  God  coming  somehow 
into  Israel,  the  story  as  reconstructed  by  the 
critics  is  just  a  natural  story  of  escape  from 
captivity,  desert-wandering,  and  conquests;  and 
then    slow    growth    upwards    from    the    level    of 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  85 

surrounding  heathenism,  law  accumulating,  and 
sacrifice  "refining  in  idea,  from  age  to  age.  All 
this  is  pure  supposition,  without  one  vestige  of 
independent  proof. 

Similarly  the  account  given  of  the  later  history, 
e.g.^  that  Solomon's  temple  is  not  an  effort  to 
realise  the  ideal  of  the  central  sanctuary  sketched 
in  the  Pentateuch,  but  simply  a  royal  high-place, 
which  did  not  antiquate  the  other  high  places,  is 
merely  a  bow  drawn  at  a  venture,  with,  of  course, 
all  sorts  of  inferential^  evidence  cleverly  put  to- 
gether, but  with  no  solid  proof. 

Coming  to  the  era  of  the  prophets  and  the  later 
kings,  which  is  the  constructive  period  according  to 
the  critical  theory,  we  have  a  series  of  unsupported 
suppositions  without  a  parallel  in  any  literature,  or 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  First  we  have  the 
fragment  of  the  book  of  the  Covenant  ^  incorporated 
in  the  Jehovist  and  Elohist  narrative — at  any  rate, 
before  Hosea  and  Amos,  or  it  may  be  a  century 
earlier.  Then  in  Manasseh's  or  Josiah's  days, 
before  621  B.C.,  Deuteronomy  came  into  existence  ; 
and  lastly,  some  time  before  the  close  of  the  Exile, 
a  large  proportion  of  the  present  Pentateuch,  the 
Priests'  Code,  was  put  together  and  joined  with 
the  other  codes  into  a  whole.  These  are  simply 
suppositions,  founded,  of  course,  on  a  great  variety 
of  considerations,  but,  as  we  stated  in  last  chapter, 

^  Exodus  xx.-xxiii. 


86     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

uncountenanced  by  one  shred  of  fact,  and  un- 
supported by  independent  proof. 

Let  us  pause  to  take  in  that  circumstance.  The 
critics  have  Hved  so  long  in  the  world  of  their  own 
theory,  and  have  made  so  much  of  views  and  con- 
siderations that  really  depend  for  their  validity  on 
that  theory,  that  they  take  for  proof  what  is  really 
part  of  their  supposition.  And  they  imagine  that 
we  are  going  to  accept  on  trust  this  huge  structure 
of  supposition,  not  only  without  evidence,  but 
despite  historical  improbabilities  of  the  gravest 
description,  as  we  saw  when  dealing  with  the 
ages  of  Josiah  and  Ezra  in  our  last  chapter. 

But,  says  someone,  granted  that  this  critical 
theory  is  not  historically  proved,  that  it  subsists  as 
a  hypothesis,  still  it  is  the  hypothesis  of  trained 
experts,  who  have  a  knowledge  of  the  language 
and  a  command  of  the  sources  given  to  few. 
True,  they  are  working  with  a  Hebrew  text  not 
older  than  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  a.d.,  and 
the  Septuagint  dating  from  250  B.C.,  and  down- 
wards. But  what  triumphs  have  been  achieved 
by  the  critical  acumen  of  scholars  in  other  fields ! 
And,  especially  when  we  find  so  many  minds 
agreeing  on  certain  general  conclusions,  have  we 
not  warrant  for  believing  that  there  must  be 
something  in  what  they  aver  ^ 

Certainly  let  us  honour  authority  and  acquire- 
ments,   not    as    a    substitute    for    proof,    but    as 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  87 

predispbsing  us  favourably  to  consider  what  they 
advance  as  proof.  For  thirty  years  we  have  given 
such  a  patient  hearing — we  mean  the  Church  and 
Christian  people  generally — as  has  never  before 
been  given  in  a  similar  case.  And  when  still, 
after  thirty  years,  this  hypothesis  hangs  fire,  and 
actual  demonstration  is  as  far  off  as  ever,  surely 
we  are  not  only  free,  but  bound,  to  inquire  into 
the  grounds  on  which  this  supposition  is  set  up. 

Principal  Stewart,  of  St  Andrews,  in  Dr 
Hastings'  "  Bible  Dictionary,"  ^  concluding  strongly 
for  criticism  as  something  which  cannot  be  ig- 
nored, says  that  the  problem  of  the  Pentateuch 
"took  a  new  phase  when  not  only  linguistic  and 
Hterary  considerations  were  brought  to  its  solution, 
but  also  considerations  derived  from  a  closer 
examination  of  Israel's  history,  and  of  the  pro- 
gress of  its  religious  thought  and  practice." 
When  inquired  into,  that  really  means  that  the 
hypothesis  is  founded  on  a  hypothesis.  For 
what  did  this  closer  examination  amount  to? 
Whence  this  fresh  view  of  the  development 
of  religious  thought  and  practice  in  Israel  ? 
Principally  from  two  theories  of  Wellhausen, 
adopted  by  many  Continental  and  British  critics  ; 
and  these  in  turn  were  founded  on  a  rigorous 
application  of  the  theory  of  natural  development. 

Take,  first,  Wellhausen's  view  of  the  centralisa- 

1  Vol.  i.  pp.  289,  290. 


88     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

tion  of  worship.  This  is  his  strong  point,  on 
which  he  rests  his  whole  theory.  There  is  no 
element  of  Divine  appointment  in  the  worship  of 
Israel.  "In  the  early  days  worship  arose  out  of 
the  midst  of  ordinary  life."  "A  sacrifice  was  a 
meal."i  Even  the  great  national  festivals  "rest 
upon  agriculture,  the  basis  at  once  of  religion  and 
life."2  In  those  days  the  worship  of  the  Bamoth 
or  high  places  was  the  general  custom  up  and 
down  the  land.  The  Israelites  learned  these  feasts 
from  the  Canaanites,  and  reproduced  Canaanite 
customs,  substituting  Jehovah  for  Baal.  The  cen- 
tralisation of  worship  was  a  gradual  process.  The 
destruction  of  Samaria  threw  Jerusalem  into  relief 
as  a  central  sanctuary.  As  these  festivals  became 
centralised  under  the  influence  of  the  prophets, 
they  lost  their  old  associations,  and  became  more 
and  more  abstract.  "  And  when  they  had  lost 
their  original  contents,  and  degenerated  into  mere 
prescribed  religious  forms,  there  was  nothing  to 
prevent  the  refilling  of  the  empty  bottles,  in  any 
way  accordant  with  the  tastes  of  the  period. "^ 
In  other  words,  imagination  set  to  work,  and,  on 
what  Wellhausen  calls  "the  tabula  rasa  of  the 
wilderness,"  reared  the  hierarchical  system  depicted 
in  Exodus.  The  book  of  the  Covenant  accord- 
ingly belongs  to  the  early  period,  when  nature- 
worship   at    the   high   places   still   existed.       The 

1  "  History  of  Israel,"  p.  76.         2  ,y^^^  p.  96.         s  jj^^^  p    jqj. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  89 

reform  under  Josiah,  when  Deuteronomy  appeared, 
marks  the  first  stage  in  the  spiritualisation  of 
worship ;  and  in  the  Priests'  Code  you  have  the 
spiritualised  worship  fitted  out  with  glorious 
legendary  beginnings. 

Here  you  have  got  one  hypothesis  supporting 
another,  and  both  without  one  vestige  of  inde- 
pendent proof.  If  we  were  entering  here  in  detail 
into  the  whole  subject,  and  not  furnishing  a  few 
proofs  of  the  kind  of  evidence  on  which  the 
critical  hypothesis  rests,  we  could  bring  many 
objections  against  this  theory.  As  a  theory  it 
proves  far  too  much,  reducing  the  history  of  Israel 
to  such  a  natural,  pagan  level  that  it  is  impossible 
to  understand  how  she  fulfilled  her  unique  destiny, 
or  rose  above  the  surrounding  peoples.  Pulverise 
Old  Testament  Scripture  as  you  please,  it  reflects 
a  spirit,  and  discovers  a  consciousness  of  God,  and 
of  a  national  destiny  indissolubly  associated  with 
God,  utterly  opposed  to  this  naturalism. 

Then,  the  documents  which  the  theory  accounts 
for  do  not  bear  out  the  view.  Of  course,  it  is 
easy  to  prove  anything  when  you  remove  from  the 
text  whatever  militates  against  your  position !  If 
the  Ten  Commandments,  even  in  the  most  primitive 
form,  as  some  critics  think,  belong  to  the  book  of 
the  Covenant,  then  they  represent  so  vivid  a  real- 
isation of  one  God,  and  a  worship  so  removed  in 
cardinal  features  from  heathen   worship,   that  we 


90     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

cannot  for  a  moment  regard  this  section  as  author- 
ising, or  even  referring  to,  the  nature-worship  of 
the  high  places.  The  very  passage  which  is 
quoted  to  justify  that  worship  has  indeed  the  op- 
posite effect :  "  In  all  places  where  I  record  My 
name,  I  will  come  unto  thee,  and  I  will  bless 
thee."i  Men  were  not  to  worship  at  their  own 
hand.  Jehovah  had  come  into  the  midst  of  them. 
From  day  to  day  He  would  record  His  name,  ap- 
point the  place  for  rest,  and  there  they  should 
worship.  And  so  when  they  entered  into  the 
promised  land  He  would  appoint  whatever  place 
seemed  good  to  Him  for  their  ordinary  or  excep- 
tional worship.  Whatever  that  consorts  with, 
such  a  view  is  utterly  opposed  to  the  naturalistic 
theory,  while  it  is  quite  in  line  with  God's  appoint- 
ment of  a  worship  which  from  the  beginning  aimed 
at  a  central  sanctuary.  He  kept  in  His  own  hand 
the  appointment  of  the  place  where  He  should 
come  near  and  bless  them. 

What  we  have  to  say,  however,  is  that  this 
theory  of  the  centralisation  of  worship  is  a  hypo- 
thesis, possessing  no  vestige  of  argumentative 
value,  except  as  it  fits  into  and  explains  the 
origin  of  Old  Testament  Scripture.  And  more,  it 
does  not  stand  alone.  There  is  another  explana- 
tion which  is  more  than  a  hypothesis,  w^hich  has 
come  down  from  ancient  times,  which  is  imbedded 

^Exodus  XX.  24. 


"  CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  91 

in  Scripture,  and  which,  without  straining  our 
credulity,  explains  the  peculiarity  of  Israel's 
worship  far  more  satisfactorily,  so  as  to  allow 
for  its  unique  place  and  influence.  The  discovery 
of  God  at  Sinai  was  so  glorious,  that  the  worship 
of  Israel  stood  on  a  plane  of  its  own  from  the 
beginning.  While  the  whole  nation  was  in  Horeb 
there  could  be  no  question  of  many  altars.  And 
before  they  left  that  holy  place,  provision  was 
made  in  the  tabernacle  for  a  centralised  worship, 
without  thought  or  mention  of  any  other.  Only 
when  they  were  about  to  enter  into  Canaan 
was  it  necessary,  as  in  Deuteronomy,  to  enforce 
the  doctrine  of  the  central  sanctuary,  and  so  guard 
them  from  the  heathen  worships  of  the  land. 

If  we  simply  look  at  facts  as  they  are  before 
us,  which,  taking  everything  into  account,  is 
the  more  likely  supposition  1.  Which  has  the 
fewer  difliculties  1  And  yet  the  Higher  Criticism 
goes  away  from  the  ancient,  the  obvious,  the  un- 
forced explanation,  and  takes  up  a  theory  violent, 
unsupported,  improbable. 

But  take  another  of  these  hypothetical  supports 
for  the  reconstruction  of  the  Higher  Criticism. 
Deuteronomy,  we  are  told,  must  come  before  the 
Priests'  Code,  because  the  Levites  are  predominant 
in  that  book,  while  in  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and 
Numbers  we  have  a  more  highly  articulated  wor- 
ship, in  which  the  priests  take  the  principal  place. 


92     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Here  we  have  a  simple  process  of  natural  evolu- 
tion, boldly  imposed  on  Scripture  without  a  vestige 
of  proof.  First  comes  nature-worship,  with  no 
definite  order;  then  Levitical  guilds,  becoming 
a  Levitical  order,  with  special  provision ;  and  then 
the  priests  and  high  priest  as  the  last  stage  in  the 
development.  So  do  men  embroider  their  vain 
thoughts  on  ^he  imperishable  substance  of  Scripture! 

But  the  wisdom  of  man  is  foolishness  with  God. 
He  has  His  own  plan  written  indelibly  on  Scripture. 
His  plan  was  not  evolution,  but  differentiation. 
First  the  whole  people  were  to  be  a  nation  of 
priests ;  priestly  service  was  to  be  the  law  of  their 
life  in  response  to  God's  love.  Then  the  first- 
born sons  were  specially  claimed  as  the  Lord's, 
and  an  offering  had  to  be  made  in  Heu  of  their 
service.  Then  the  tribe  of  Levi  did  service  for 
all  their  brethren,  and  had  a  peculiar  provision. 
And  crowning  all  were  the  priests,  the  sons  of 
Aaron.  Instead  of  a  poor  mechanical  idea  of 
natural  development,  you  have  a  great  Divine 
provision,  impressing  upon  Israel  from  the  be- 
ginning the  unique  character  which  she  bore  to 
the  end.  The  nation  was  bound  to  its  covenant 
God  in  priestly  service ;  every  family  owned  a 
priestly  consecration — that  was  the  essential  nature 
of  the  kingdom — while  Levites  and  priests  were 
delegated  for  immediate  ministries. 

We  might  now  proceed  to  apply  to  this  hypo- 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  93 

thesis,  based  on  hypotheses,  the  scientific  tests 
which  we  have  already  mentioned.  But,  to  give 
the  critical  theory  every  advantage,  let  us  look  at 
an  argument  which  has  generally  been  regarded 
as  sufficient  to  justify  the  critical  view  and  put  the 
traditional  out  of  account. 

If  the  Pentateuchal  system  was  complete  before 
the  conquest  of  Palestine,  how  can  we  explain  the 
fact  that  it  was  never  fully  operative  till  the  Exile  ^ 
And  more  than  that,  "if  the  whole  legal  system 
was  revealed  to  Israel  at  the  very  beginning  of 
its  national  existence,"  that  would  cramp  further 
development ;  or,  as  Professor  Robertson  Smith, 
who  elaborately  discusses  this  objection,  phrases  it, 
that  "strictly  limits  our  conception  of  the  function 
and  significance  of  subsequent  revelation."^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  we  think,  that  that 
argument  has  done  more  than  any  other  to 
stagger  Bible  students,  and  to  incline  them  to 
believe  that  there  must  be  something  in  the 
Higher  Criticism.  And  yet  the  objection  derives 
whatever  strength  it  possesses  from  the  same  con- 
ception of  natural  evolution  which  has  already 
been  seen  to  be  largely  drawn  upon,  and  is 
pushed  home  in  oblivion  of  facts  of  immense 
significance  and  importance. 

Of  course,  in  the  case  of  tribes  growing  up  in 
ordinary  conditions,  institutions  are  slowly  formed, 

1  '<  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  214. 


94     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

react  on  the  nation  as  they  take  shape,  and  so 
reach  full  development,  becoming  the  mould  in 
which  future  ages  are  formed. 

But  suppose  that  we  have  here  an  entirely 
different  set  of  circumstances.  We  saw  in  the 
last  chapter  how,  in  the  ages  far  removed,  of 
Ezra,  Josiah,  and  Amos,  the  Jew  looked  back  to 
a  solitary  national  beginning  in  covenant  with 
God.  Suppose  then  that  God  did  come  forth  in 
glorious  self-revelation,  bound  the  people  in 
covenant  with  Himself,  and  surrounded  them  with 
a  law  impinging  on  every  side  of  their  individual 
and  common  life.  That  was  a  movement  not  on 
the  natural  plane  of  self-interest,  but  in  the  region 
of  faith  and  moral  submission.  It  was  of  the 
nature  of  an  appeal  to  faculties  half  dormant  in 
the  bondsmen  of  Egypt,  asleep  in  all  other  nations. 
If  we  might  speak  as  men,  it  was  an  experiment 
of  a  redemptive  and  educational  kind.  It  was, 
too,  a  conditional  covenant,  based  on  faith  and 
submission  on  the  part  of  the  people.  The  rules 
and  penalties  were  all  fixed  in  view  of  what  was 
fitting  and  proprirtionate,  as  between  a  covenant 
people  and  their.  God. 

Let  faith  go,  however,  let  submission  be  inter- 
rupted, and  violation  of  the  law  would  be  the  first 
effect  among  those  who  had  sunk  down  to  the 
natural  level  again.  The  whole  system  had 
validity  to  moral  vision  illumined  by  the  sense  of 


^CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM  95 

God,  and  to  that  alone.  When  the  people,  then, 
sank  to  the  level  on  which  we  find  them  at  the 
opening  of  the  book  of  Judges,  need  we  wonder 
to  find  the  Levitical  system  in  abeyance?  They 
had  forfeited  the  very  conditions  amid  which  it 
might  have  been  observed.  The  children  of 
Benjamin  might  have  had  Jerusalem  in  the 
Conquest,  but  dwelt  with  the  Jebusites,^  forfeit- 
ing a  great  opportunity  at  the  dawn  of  their 
history. 

Then,  lest  we  judge  Israel  too  hardly,  let  us 
remember  that  she  stood  alone  in  the  earth  on 
this  upward  groove.  All  other  nations  were 
burying  their  primitive  sense  of  God  in  myth, 
fetishism,  and  animism.  Now  this,  at  least,  must 
be  said — and,  all  things  considered,  it  is  a  great 
deal.  While  there  might  be  wild  plunges  into 
idolatry  on  the  part  of  the  chosen  people,  with 
the  example  of  a  whole  world  before  them,  they 
did  not  make  their  bed  in  idolatry.  They  clung 
to  rudiments  and  fragments  of  the  Mosaic  system 
— to  sacrifice,  to  Shiloh-worship,  to  the  ark  of  the 
Covenant. 

You  see,  too,  from  the  men  and  women  which- 
the  system  produced,  not  only  a  new  sense  of 
God,  of  His  help  and  scrutiny,  but  of  sin,  and  of 
a  need  of  holiness  in  approaching  Him.  The 
fragments — even   if  all   that  we  read  about  was 

1  Judges  i.  zi. 


g6     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

all  that  was,  and  that  is  by  no  means  certain — 
had  the  soul  of  the  Mosaic  system  in  them,  and 
produced  men  and  women  of  a  type  to  be  found 
nowhere  else  in  the  world. 

And  when  power  came  to  Israel,  what  do  we 
behold  ?  After  centuries  we  find  a  recurrence  to 
type — David  within  his  own  time,  and  then 
Solomon,  as  an  act  of  homage  to  God,  resolving 
to  rear  a  temple  on  the  general  lines  of  the 
tabernacle. 

Is  not  that  a  living  history  ?  Have  we  not  here 
religion  as  a  vital  force,  working  not  mechanically 
but  centrally  ?  And  if  what  we  see  be  only  an 
imperfect  aspiration  and  adumbration,  is  it  not  all 
the  more  likely  to  be  real,  coming  from  imperfect 
men  ? 

Compare  this  pulsating  story,  with  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  a  real,  if  an  exceptional  life, 
playing  over  all,  with  the  machine-made  theory 
of  the  critics,  and  you  can  have  little  difficulty  as 
to  which  you  should  accept. 

There  is  nothing,  therefore,  which  with  any 
approach  to  truth  can  be  called  a  necessity  for 
'this  theory.  Come,  then,  and  let  us  apply  the 
scientific  tests  which  logicians  have  laid  down  as 
the  necessary  conditions  of  a  valid  hypothesis. 
Can  the  critical  theory  meet  them  ?  At  no  single 
point.  As  we  have  seen  again  and  again,  it  is 
not  consistent  with  itself.     The  difficulties  which 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  97 

we  pointed  out  in  last  chapter  are  real  difficulties. 
Moreover,  how  can  we  have  beginnings  so  crudely 
naturalistic  issuing  in  a  religion  so  separate  from 
all  naturalism  as  that  of  the  prophets,  in  vivid 
contact  with  God  ? 

But  we  saw  that  when  we  are  trying  to  dis- 
cover a  cause,  and  especially  when  there  are  two 
or  more  rival  hypotheses  set  up  to  explain  the 
phenomenon,  it  is  not  enough  that  any  one  of 
them  seems  to  account  for  all  the  facts.  Real 
proof  must  be  brought  in  to  bear  out  the  theory. 
Have  we  such  proof  in  favour  of  the  critical 
theory  ?  It  is  a  hypothesis  based  on  hypotheses, 
and  there  are  really  no  independent  facts  to  be 
adduced  in  support. 

But  perhaps  it  is  a  tour  de  force  of  genius 
which  gives  the  most  reasonable  explanation  of 
Old  Testament  religion  and  the  formation  of  the 
Scriptures.  While  it  does  not  conform  to  rule,  it 
may  nevertheless  hit  the  nail  on  the  head.  Now 
manifestly  it  is  for  the  Christian  Church,  and  more 
widely  the  Christian  people,  to  speak.  The  former 
treasures  in  her  creeds  the  living  findings  of  all  the 
centuries ;  the  latter  are  receiving  into  themselves 
daily  the  power  of  religion,  and  living  by  her  light. 
After  all,  the  proper  quality  of  a  religion  is  to  be 
discovered  from  within  by  the  man  who  experiences 
it,  and  by  the  generations  of  men  who  have  written 
out  their  experiences  in  life  and  literature. 


98     THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Suppose,  then,  the  Church  questioning  this  new 
hypothesis :  On  what  ground  do  you  claim  that 
we  shall  accept  this  view  of  the  rise  and  develop- 
ment of  Old  Testament  literature  ?  Not  only  do 
you  go  wide  from,  but  you  trample  upon,  tradition. 
You  have  no  foundations  of  fact  upon  which  to 
base  your  leading  positions.  The  answer  to  that 
question  would  be :  The  sovereign  worth  of  this 
theory  is  that  it  reduces  the  history  of  Israel  to 
natural  proportions,  and  brings  it  within  the  lines 
of  a  natural  development.  The  exceptional  and 
miraculous  are  removed  from  the  history.  We 
look  upon  the  history  of  Israel  as  a  slow  normal 
growth,  not,  as  tradition  regards  it,  on  a  plane  of 
its  own,  moving  under  the  impact  of  a  creative 
divine  revelation,  and  within  the  lines  of  a  covenant 
fellowship. 

But,  says  the  Church,  speaking  in  all  her  creeds, 
these  things  are  no  recommendations  to  us.  And 
the  great  mass  of  living  souls  in  fellowship  with 
God  through  the  Spirit  support  the  testimony  of 
the  ages.  The  spiritual  stands  on  foundations  of 
its  own  as  truly  as  the  material,  and  is  authen- 
ticated by  results  as  fully  as  any  kingdom  of 
nature.  We  need  no  mediation  of  human  wisdom, 
to  shore  up  and  buttress  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
the  souls  of  men.  She  stands  in  Divine  power, 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  her. 
Now  the  keystone  of  the  spiritual   is  the   direct 


CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM  99 

self-revelation  of  God.  Thus  does  it  begin  in 
every  living  soul  "  When  it  pleased  God  to  reveal 
His  Son  in  me,"  said  Paul.  ''We  have  heard 
Him  ourselves,  and  know" — so  spake  the  simple 
Samaritans  from  the  depths  of  personal  conviction. 
And  more,  in  every  soul  this  self-discovery  of  God 
starts  and  controls  the  whole  life-progress. 

But  to  advance.  We  have  in  Christianity  an 
historical  instance  of  a  Divine  beginning — a  creative 
revelation  in  Christ,  the  sum  of  which  abides  in  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles  —  that  has  controlled  the 
Christian  centuries,  and,  exhaustless  as  at  the 
beginning,  has  fed  and  animated  and  guided  the 
generations  of  the  redeemed  to  the  present  hour. 
What  you  dismiss  as  an  inadmissible  exception  is 
the  method  of  God  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual 
and  of  revelation.  Since  the  Old  Testament  is 
one  with  the  New,  an  integral  part  of  one  great 
progressive  revelation,  the  presumption  is  very 
strong  that  God  would  use  an  analogous  method 
in  the  Old  Testament  to  what  He  has  done  in  the 
New.  And  on  that  ground  alone  the  traditional 
view  has  immensely  the  advantage. 

That  such  is  the  answer  of  the  past — the 
Christian  consciousness  of  all  the  ages — there  can 
be  no  doubt.  And  while  Christ  lives  and  the 
Spirit  works  in  men,  that  will  continue  to  be  the 
answer  of  the  generations  to  come. 

And  so  the  disguise  is  oiF,  and  the  new  criticism 


loo   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

is  found  to  be  one  with  the  old  rationalism — an 
attempt  to  deny,  or  to  limit  unwarrantably,  the 
full  claim  of  revelation  to  be  a  self-unveiling  of 
God,  in  a  glorious  purpose  of  grace,  not  subject 
to  nature,  but  coming  in  as  a  higher  force  into  the 
realm  of  nature  to  liberate  from  slavery,  and  to 
throw  light  upon  all  subordinate  kingdoms  of 
nature,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  spiritual,  which 
is  the  central  truth  and  reality  of  the  universe. 

How  do  you  dispose  of  an  invalid  hypothesis  ? 
Simply  throw  it  away.  Being  merely  a  supposition 
it  is  worth  nothing,  save  as  it  is  accepted  univer- 
sally to  be  the  only  adequate  explanation  of  the 
fact  being  inquired  into.  But  you  say :  Is  all 
this  enormous  labour  to  go  for  nothing  .^^  Being 
called  into  existence  to  support  one  view  of  the 
origin  of  Scripture,  the  toilsome  researches  fall 
with  the  hypothesis  which  they  were  invoked  to 
maintain.  If  there  are  individual  results  which 
have  any  worth  independent  of  the  theory,  they 
will  assert  themselves  in  due  time.  But  as  the 
labour  in  making  a  flying  machine  converges  on  its 
ability  to  fly,  the  whole  is  lost  when  experience 
shows  it  cannot  fly.  The  Ptolemaic  theory  of 
astronomy  had  a  great  system  of  epicycles  and 
eccentrics  to  account  for  the  motions  of  the  planets, 
supposing  the  earth  to  be  the  centre ;  but  when 
Copernicus  showed  the  sun  to  be  the  centre,  all 
this  theoretical  structure  w,ent  by  the  board. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  loi 

In  our  humble  judgment  there  is  no  evading  the 
conclusion  at  which  we  have  arrived.  This  move- 
ment has  failed,  and,  having  failed,  it  should  be  set 
aside.  A  hypothesis  is  a  temporary  expedient  in 
absence  of  direct  proof,  and  if,  after  due  investiga- 
tion, it  lack  confirmation  or  be  proved  invalid,  it 
should  decently  die. 

Before  closing  this  chapter,  however,  we  wish 
to  enforce  our  conclusion  of  the  inadmissible 
character  of  this  hypothesis  by  adducing  the 
testimony  of  Christ.  Surely  if  anyone  has  a 
right  to  speak  of  the  old  Testament  Scriptures 
it  is  He.  He  was  an  ardent  student  of  them. 
He  saw  everything  pointing  forward  from  the 
beginning  to  His  own  work  and  sacrifice. 
Abraham  beheld  His  day.  The  Scriptures 
testified  of  Him.  He  had  weighed  every  such 
word  as  a  counsel  of  God,  so  that  to  the  men 
on  the  way  to  Emmaus,  beginning  at  Moses  and 
all  the  prophets.  He  could  point  out  and  interpret 
the  things  concerning  Himself.  Surely  all  that, 
added  to  His  Jewish  birth  and  His  living  on  the  soil 
of  Palestine  while  the  Jews  were  a  nation,  gave 
Him  some  advantages  for  understanding  how  the 
Scriptures  came  to  be.  He  was  no  traditionalist. 
He  lost  His  life  setting  at  nought  Jewish  prejudice 
and  wounding  Jewish  superstition.  With  great 
boldness  He  discovered  the  Hmitations  of  Old 
Testament  revelation. 


102   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

And  yet  criticism  has  the  hardihood — and 
thereby  discovers  plainly  the  direction  in  which 
it  goes — to  rule  out  the  testimony  of  Christ  as 
of  no  weight  on  this  subject.  There  is  no  vagrant 
critic,  albeit  his  words  show  conclusively  a  flagrant 
non-receptivity  for  the  spirit  of  our  religion, 
whose  theories,  if  they  have  any  show  of  learning 
with  them,  are  not  patiently  discussed ;  but  He 
who  saw  with  unerring  eye  into  the  future  as  into 
the  past,  and  laid  down  the  lines  of  a  Kingdom 
which  is  absorbing  all  other  kingdoms,  is  set  aside! 
The  Lord  of  glory,  entitled  to  call  all  men  and 
nations  to  the  obedience  of  faith,  yet  He  is  the 
inferior  of  multitudes,  who,  in  far  more  difficult 
circumstances,  being  Gentiles,  and  removed  two 
thousand  years  even  from  the  day  of  Christ, 
reconstruct  the  Old  Testament  with  admirable 
ease,  discover  the  work  of  different  hands  in  the 
compass  of  a  single  verse,  resurrect  J.  and  E.  and 
D.  and  F\  and  P^. 

*'  And  twenty  more  such  names  and  men  as  these, 
Which  never  were,  and  no  man  ever  saw." 

But  Others  affirm  that  Jesus  accommodated 
Himself  to  the  men  of  his  own  time.  They  had 
certain  views  of  the  origin  and  authorship  of 
Scripture,  hallowed  by  tradition,  and  it  was  no 
use,  in  seeking  to  confer  a  spiritual  blessing,  to 
rouse  their  suspicion  or  awaken  their  animosity. 

To  that  we  could   assent   if  Christ   had   been 


CHRIST  AND  CRITICISM  103 

simply  silent — avoiding  reference  to  author  or 
age.  But,  -so  far  from  being  silent,  He  is  re- 
markably explicit.  He  commits  Himself  to  the 
historicity  of  Abraham,  not  only  to  his  personal 
reality,  but  to  his  covenant  place.  What  the  Jews 
read  in  their  synagogues  at  that  day  was  the 
Pentateuch  as  we  have  it,  regarded  with  a  peculiar 
reverence  as  the  most  sacred  part  of  Holy  Scripture. 
When  the  Law  was  spoken  of,  every  Jew  under- 
stood that  to  be  meant ;  yet  Jesus  called  that  Law 
the  Law  of  Moses.^  Appealing  to  the  Jews  as  to 
their  own  disloyalty,  Jesus  said,  "  Did  not  Moses 
give  you  the  law  ^  "  ^  He  quotes  from  Exodus, 
Leviticus,  Deuteronomy,  passages  which  he  calls 
commandments  of  Moses. ^  He  spoke,  too,  of  the 
writings  of  Moses,  and  declared — yea,  made  it  a 
part  of  an  argument  for  His  Messiahship — that 
Moses  wrote  of  him.^ 

Here  we  have  not  accommodation  but  specific 
assertion  of  the  truth  of  the  traditional  view. 
Not  only  did  Christ  not  offend  Jewish  opinion  : 
He  had  made  up  His  own  mind,  and  expressed 
His  own  opinion.  And  so  the  prevailing  critical 
view  is,  that  Jesus  did  not  know,  being  in  these 
matters  Hmited  by  the  knowledge  of  His  time. 

Before  considering  this  view,  however,  we  must 
turn  aside  to  a  diversion  from  the  general  critical 

^  Luke  xxiv.  44.  2  John  vii.  19. 

^  Mark  vii.  10  ;  Matthew  viii.  4;  xix.  7.       •*  John  v.  46,  47. 


104  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

explanation,  made  by  Professor  George  Adam 
Smith.  He  tries  to  win  a  dubious  advantage  by 
making  out  Christ  to  be  the  first  critic.  One 
wonders  if  he  has  really  broken  with  the  ordinary 
critical  opinion,  which  insists  on  the  limitations  of 
Christ's  human  knowledge,  or  has  simply  taken  up 
this  as  an  argument  fitted  to  captivate  the  uncritical 
lay  mind.  But,  taking  the  view  for  what  it  is 
worth,  his  argument  recoils  with  crushing  effect 
on  its  author.  As  we  have  already  said,  Christ  is 
bold  in  His  exposure  of  the  limitations  of  Old 
Testament  revelation.  He  assumes  an  authority 
over  it,  widening  the  narrow  and  positive  commands 
of  the  Old  Covenant,  and  carrying  them  down  to 
their  full  meaning  and  real  root  in  the  law  of  love 
which  He  was  the  first  clearly  to  reveal.  But  if 
Christ  was  a  critic — a  true  critic — when  He  dis- 
covered the  deciduous  elements,  not  only  in 
tradition  but  in  the  Old  Testament,  must  He  not 
have  been  equally  a  critic  in  His  positive  view? 
Christ  then,  beyond  all  question,  teaches  this : 
that,  with  whatever  temporary  accommodations  to 
an  infantile  stage  of  moral  development,  the  law 
contained  the  norm,  the  essential  principle  of  the 
Divine  unveiling,  having  significance,  ay,  imperish- 
able validity,  for  all  time.  With  all  His  pruning. 
He  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil.  ^  Yea,  in  the 
very  perishable  elements  there  were  principles  of 

^  Matthew  v.  17. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  105 

perennial  value.  Progress  was  not  away  from  the  ful- 
ness of  the  old  law,  but  in  the  direction  of  a  still  fuller 
interpretation  of  all  which  its  precepts  truly  meant. 
And  so  He  could  say :  "  One  jot  or  one  tittle  shall 
in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be  fulfilled." 

But  more  than  that,  Jesus  recognised  that  from 
the  earliest  beginnings  God  foreshadowed  the 
end.  In  His  dealings  with  Abraham  there  were 
great  outlines  of  covenant  fellowship  and  pardon 
through  sacrifice.  The  patriarch  saw  in  germ  all 
that  Christ  was  to  stand  for  in  life  and  in  death. 
From  Moses  onwards  the  Scriptures  were  full  of 
things  concerning  Himself.  In  other  words,  there 
was  in  His  view  the  unity  of  a  great  plan  pervading 
Scripture  which  must  have  been  foreseen  from  the 
beginning.  He  who  formed  the  vital  cell  must 
have  foreseen  all  to  which  that  cell  could  develop. 
And  He  who  laid  down  the  first  lines  of  promise 
must  have  known  (so  numerous  are  the  corre- 
spondences) all  into  which  they  would  grow  in  the 
fulness  of  time.  That  is  the  unforced  significance 
of  the  conclusions  drawn  by  this  "first  of  critics," 
the  Son  of  God ;  and  they  run  directly  counter  to 
the  fundamental  positions  of  the  Higher  Criticism. 

But  the  greater  number  of  critics  have  deemed 
it  safer  to  take  another  line.  They  have  held  it 
wrong  to  consider  Christ  as  a  final  authority  on 
Old  Testament  criticism.  He  everywhere  took 
the  Old  Testament  as  He  found  it,  and  His  beliefs 


io6   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

were  the  ones  current  at  that  time.  And  Canon 
Gore  (now  Bishop  of  Worcester)  instances  His 
use  of  Jonah's  resurrection,  and  the  flood,  and  His 
ascription  of  Psalm  ex.  to  David,  as  illustrations  of 
the  way  in  which  He  echoed  prevailing  opinion.  In 
order  to  harmonise  this  with  the  Church's  belief 
in  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  and  Saviour  of  the 
world,  he  and  many  others  bring  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Kenosis — that  Christ  emptied  Himself,  coming 
to  be  in  the  likeness  of  men.  To  quote  Bishop 
Gore:  ''He,  the  very  God,  habitually  spoke  in 
His  incarnate  life  on  earth  under  the  limitations 
of  a  properly  human  consciousness."^ 

This  introduces  a  very  difficult  subject,  which 
we  cannot  attempt  to  cover  in  these  few  closing 
words.  Of  course  there  must  have  been  a  marvel- 
lous self-limitation  in  the  Incarnation,  before  the 
Divine  nature  could  live  and  work  within  the 
human.  But  the  point  is,  was  there  more  than 
self-abnegation ;  was  there  a  putting  away,  a 
privation  of  an  essential  attribute  of  Deity,  like 
omniscience  ?  The  proofs  on  which  those  who  hold 
this  rely  do  not  seem  to  bear  out  their  contention. 
Certainly  if  Christ  spoke  and  thought  within  a 
human  consciousness,  and  by  means  of  human 
words,  there  was  at  the  same  time  a  wonderful 
extension  of  human  powers.  In  numerous  minute 
traits     He    showed    His    superiority    to    ordinary 

^  See  Gore's  <'  Bampton  Lecture,"  pp.  195-199. 


CHRIST  AND   CRITICISM  107 

human  limitations.  Consider,  too,  His  knowledge 
of  the  future.  Here  the  limits  which  environ  us 
are  strait  and  absolute.  He  saw  the  future  un- 
erringly. He  knew  not  only  the  fact,  but  the 
entire  course  of  His  sufferings,  and  their  issue  in 
resurrection.  Then  what  a  limitless  insight  into 
the  unique  character,  and  course,  and  world-issues, 
of  His  Kingdom !  Take  those  seven  parables  of 
the  Kingdom  narrated  by  Matthew.^  Note  His 
clear  consciousness  of  the  hostility  which  He  would 
provoke — sending  not  peace,  but  a  sword — His 
vision  of  evil  dogging  the  good,  His  perception 
of  the  suffering  state  through  which  the  Church, 
growing  stronger  by  trial,  would  enter  more  fully 
into  hberty  and  power.  His  world-commission  to 
His  disciples,  the  assurance  of  His  continual 
presence  with  His  own.  If  the  whole  future  of 
the  Kingdom  lay  clear  to  Him,  surely  He  must 
have  had  exceptional  insight  into  the  past  of  that 
Kingdom,  of  which  He  was  sum  and  goal. 

Yet  critics  deny  Him  the  insight  which  they 
arrogate  to  themselves.  In  bringing  up  such 
minute  points  as  those  which  we  have  mentioned, 
critics  are  playing  with  the  question.  The  point 
is  :  Did  Jesus  fundamentally  misconceive  the  char- 
acter of  the  Old  Testament.^  Did  He  take  for 
a  creative  revelation  what  was  a  slow  and  ordinary 
human  growth  ?     Did  He  take  for  prophetic  insight 

^  Matthew  xiii. 


io8    THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

of  the  patriarch  Abraham,  words  which  some 
imaginative  writer  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  geo- 
graphic m3^th  whom  he  first  made  a  historical 
character  ?  Did  He  take,  for  authoritative  laws 
given  by  God  to  Moses,  late  codifications  of  Jewish 
common  law  wrought  up  with  audacious  fictions  ? 
Did  that  idea  of  a  Divine  norm  in  the  law  which 
would  yet  receive  an  ideal  fulfilment,  and  that 
other  of  a  Scripture  governed  in  all  its  parts  by  a 
foreseeing  mind,  and  pointing  in  all  parts  to  Him- 
self— did  all  that  only  live  as  a  dream  and  illusion 
in  His  own  mind  ? 

If  these  things  were  so,  if  all  that  is  involved  in 
these  admissions  were  true — if  we  could  for  a 
moment  believe  them  true — then  what  disparage- 
ment would  fall  on  the  judgment  and  insight  of 
the  Son  of  God !  If  He  blundered  regarding  the 
preparatory  dispensation — our  pen  trembles  to  write 
the  words — may  He  not  have  misjudged  regarding 
the  platform  on  which  He  Himself  stood  ? 

Until  these  matters  are  cleared,  we  need  not 
enter  into  discussion  of  those  points  as  to  the 
authorship  of  Psalm  ex.,  and  Christ's  references 
to  Jonah  and  the  Flood.  These  questions  enter 
into  central  matters  affecting  His  own  mission, 
and  are  testing  to  moral  judgment  and  intellectual 
discernment.  And  when  they  are  fairly  faced, 
the  light  and  easy  dismissal  of  the  testimony  of 
Christ  will  no  longer  be  possible. 


IV 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  DISINTEGRATING 
PROCESS 

Matt  xxi.  44  :  '-'But  on  whomsoever  it  shall  fall,  it  will  grind  him 
to  powder." 

We  reached  an  important  point  at  the  close  of 
last  chapter.  We  saw  that  the  Higher  Criticism 
is  a  hypothesis  based  upon  hypotheses,  without 
external  justification,  and  in  face  of  other  and 
more  reasonable  explanations ;  that  it  does  not  at 
any  point  meet  the  tests  which  logicians  have  set 
up  to  prove  the  validity  of  hypotheses ;  and, 
therefore,  that  being  only  a  theory  or  supposition 
in  absence  of  direct  proof — devised  in  the  hope 
of  its  meeting  all  the  facts  of  the  case — and 
having  failed  as  such,   it  should  be  set  aside. 

But  we  can  fancy  the  critics  putting  in  a  caveat 
against  our  dismissal  of  the  case  at  this  point. 
Tabling  Dr  Driver's  ''Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," or  the  analyses  of  the  books  in  recent 
Encyclopasdias,  or  the  Polychrome  Bible,  as  far 
as  published,  they  say:  This  is  our  proof;  we 
have  disintegrated  and  reconstructed  the  Old 
Testament  on  critical  lines.  Professor  George 
Adam  Smith  speaks  of  this  as  "  one  of  the  most 

109 


no  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

thorough  intellectual  processes  of  our  time." 
Referring  on  a  previous  page  to  "  the  industrious 
research "  and  "  unsparing  criticism "  brought  to 
bear  on  the  several  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
he  goes  on  to  say  :  ''  For  over  a  century,  every 
relevant  science,  every  temper  of  faith,  and,  one 
might  add,  almost  every  school  of  philosophy,  have 
shot  across  this  narrow  field  their  opposing  lights  : 
under  which  there  has  been  an  expenditure  of 
individual  labour  and  ingenuity  greater  than  has 
been  devoted  to  any  other  literature  of  the  ancient 
world,  or  to  any  other  period  in  the  history  of 
religion."  1 

We  do  not  wonder  that  there  should  be  jealousy 
of  the  results  of  such  enormous  labour.  And  we 
hope  that  we  shall  never  be  left  to  ourselves  to 
speak  or  write  with  any  other  feeling  than  that  of 
respect  for  high  character,  extensive  erudition, 
patient  research,  and  an  honest  pursuit  of  truth, 
whatever  our  opinion  of  the  results  may  be.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  critics  must  not  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  we  are  to  accept  blindly  what  they 
give.  There  is  a  tone  manifest  in  their  references 
to  the  common  Christian  judgment,  which,  in  the 
interests  of  truth,  not  to  speak  of  good  feeling, 
cannot  too  strongly  be  reprobated.  What  the 
Christian  people  shall  say,  what  the  Christian 
Churches    shall    judge,    is    discounted    for    them 

1  "  Modern  Criticism,"  p.  2. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     1 1 1 

beforehand,  by  those  whose  work  has  to  be 
pronounced  upon,  with  a  scarcely  veiled  contempt. 

In  a  sentence  of  his  recent  volume  which  is  most 
likely  of  all  to  live,  Professor  G.  Adam  Smith 
allows  to  the  Church  of  Christ  with  whom  abides 
His  Spirit,  no  liberty  of  judgment,  but  only  the 
forced  payment  of  the  critically  fixed  indemnity. 
Again,  when  he  has  eliminated  from  the  history 
of  the  patriarchs  everything  beyond  the  smallest 
"substratum  of  actual  personal  history,"  he  flouts 
the  conscience  of  myriads  of  believing  men,  to 
whom  such  statements  raise  many  difficult  ques- 
tions not  easy  of  solution,  with  light  queries  like 
these:  "But  who  wants  to  be  sure  of  more? 
Who  needs  to  be  sure  of  more  ? "  Canon 
Cheyne,  too,  is  prone  to  lecture  us  on  what  "con- 
servatives want,  or  ought  to  want." 

In  all  this,  there  is  a  misunderstanding  of  their 
position.  The  critics  are  the  plaintiffs,  not  the 
judges ;  and  they  must  learn  to  respect  the  bar  at 
which  they  plead.  Now  that  their  case  is  drawn 
up  and  stated,  there  is  legitimate  and  large  room 
for  full  practical  consideration,  not  merely  of  their 
theory  and  its  self-consistency,  but  of  how  it 
stands  related  to  ordinary  probabihty,  the  laws  of 
evidence,  and  the  character  of  the  religion  whose 
origins  they  would  explain. 

As  litigants  call  counsel,  let  us  go  back  to  the 
logicians  whom  we  have   employed  to   state  the 


112   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

conditions  of  a  valid  hypothesis.  Lotze^  utters 
these  weighty  words  :  "  Every  hypothesis  is  meant 
to  be  an  account  of  a  fact,  and  is  no  mere  figure 
of  thought  or  means  of  envisaging  the  object.  A 
person  who  sets  up  an  hypothesis  beheves  he  has 
extended  the  series  of  real  facts." 

Now  what  is  the  position  of  these  higher  critics  ? 
They  have  set  up  a  theory,  the  main  outUnes  of 
which  we  gave  in  last  chapter.  Denying  the  self- 
witness  of  revelation,  that  the  history  of  the  Jewish 
people  started  from  a  creative  beginning  which 
controlled  the  whole  subsequent  development,  they 
have  reconstructed  the  history  so  as  to  show  a 
slow  natural  evolution.  And  now  in  support  of 
this  hypothesis  they  have  broken  up  Scripture  into 
what  they  regard  as  its  constituent  elements.  In 
the  Pentateuch  they  have  relegated  their  three 
codes,  The  Book  of  the  Covenant,  Deuteronomy, 
and  the  Priests'  Code,  to  what  they  think  their 
proper  places  in  the  history.  They  have  broken 
up  the  narrative  portions  into  Jehovist,  Elohist, 
and  combinations  of  these. 

All  this,  in  the  language  of  Lotze,  however,  is 
a  mere  figuring  of  their  thought,  a  means  of  en- 
visaging or  making  visible  their  hypothesis.  It 
so  happens  that  they  have  been  working  in  an  era 
of  antiquity,  in  which  there  are  few  external  facts 
to  disturb  them,  and  with  the  utmost  boldness  they 

1  «    Logic,"  p.  350. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     113 

have  disrupted  and  rearranged  Scripture  so  as  to 
fall  in  with  their  view  of  its  origin  and  develop- 
ment. Not  content  with  one  rearrangement  they 
have  made  changes  so  sweeping  and  reversals  so 
violent  as  to  show,  that  not  external  facts,  but 
subjective  considerations  of  harmony  with  their 
theory  have  guided  them. 

Now  let  no  one  suppose  that  in  saying  this  we 
impute  insincerity  or  a  playing  with  facts  to  these 
critics.  Holding  their  theory  to  be  the  true  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  Scripture,  they  doubtless 
hold  themselves  justified  in  grouping  Scripture  in 
support  of  their  view.  As  we  shall  see,  there 
may  be  in  the  text  some  things  which  give  colour 
to  their  contentions.  Further,  we  must  credit  them 
with  the  hope,  that  out  of  all  this  disintegration 
they  will  evolve  a  more  consistent,  truthful  and 
harmonious  account  of  the  origin  of  Scripture. 

But  does  not  that  make  plain  to  every  candid 
mind  that  a  great  work  has  to  be  done  after  the 
theory  has  left  the  critics'  hands,  before  there  can 
be  any  question  oi  its  being  received  by  the 
Church  and  formulated  in  her  creeds  ^  Hypothesis 
is  one  thing ;  proven  verity  is  another.  And  there 
is  often  a  great  gulf  between  them.  No  one 
denies  the  critics  the  advantages  of  their  expert 
knowledge.  Even  they  will  be  constrained  to 
admit  that  never  before  in  regard  to  a  controversy 
so  fundamental  have  the  innovators  been  allowed 


114  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

so  free  a  hand  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church, 
and  for  the  most  part  in  places  of  authority.  But 
while  they  have — through  their  hfe-devotion  to 
this  calling — a  mastery  of  the  text,  of  all  available 
facts  to  illustrate  it,  and  of  the  endless  variety  of 
cultured  opinion  thereanent,  there  are  many  others 
who  have  qualifications  of  various  kinds  fitting 
them  to  make  important  contributions  to  a  full  and 
fair  settlement. 

The  point  for  the  Church  is  not,  does  the 
hypothesis  hang  together,  but,  does  it  in  all  parts 
express  the  actual,  solid,  concrete  fact  ?  Have  we 
reason  to  believe  that  the  sacred  literature  of  the 
Hebrews  did  grow  up  in  this  fashion  ?  Taking 
human  nature  as  it  must  have  subsisted  in  all  ages, 
the  common  human  conditions  within  which  men 
live,  the  serious  problems  that  face  them,  and  the 
duties  that  are  thrown  upon  them,  can  the  sup- 
position be  regarded  as  conclusive  which  teaches 
that  this  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  marked  by 
a  unique  spiritual  unity,  •  and  an  unapproached 
ethical  spirit,  is  in  origin  a  mosaic  of  innumer- 
able bits,  pieced  together  by  imaginative  artists, 
eager  to  pass  them  off  for  something  other  than 
they  are  ? 

Now,  on  this  question  of  fact  there  are  great 
numbers  whose  judgment  is  better  worth  having 
than  that  of  the  critics — men  of  science  who 
understand  what   is   meant    by    a  scientific    proof. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     115 

advocates  and  judges  who  have  had  experience  of 
the  difficulties  and  complications  of  human  testi- 
mony, shrewd  observers  who,  in  many  walks  of 
study  and  government,  of  commerce  and  industry, 
deal  at  first  hands  with  facts — the  hard  realities  of 
physical  nature  and  human  nature.  These  men 
have  come  to  understand  the  limits  of  human 
faculty,  and  believing  that  they  are  in  the  midst 
of  a  system  of  things  which  they  only  partially 
understand,  they  more  and  more  mistrust  brilliant 
theories  based  on  but  a  section  of  the  facts,  and 
are  content  to  work  to  a  practical  solution,  not 
mayhap  eliminating  every  difficulty,  or  reaching  the 
height  of  omniscience,  but  sufficient,  and  such  as 
all  the  facts  fairly  interpreted  support. 

We  wish  to  show,  then,  how  this  analysis  of 
Scripture  strikes  the  average  cultured  man  who, 
endowed  with  a  disciplined  intellect,  has  been 
dealing  with  problems  of  fact,  evidence,  and 
human  nature,  in  some  one  of  the  many  avenues 
open  to  investigation  and  action. 

And,  First^  there  is  a  widespread  conviction 
among  cultivated  men  that  in  this  analysis  of 
Scripture,  the  critics  are,  with  the  materials  at 
their  disposal,  attempting  the  impossible. 

Let  us  briefly  state  their  justification  for  this 
view.  Even  when  dealing  with  the  work  of 
different  hands  in  a  contemporary  document, 
skilled  critics  have  found  the  task  far  from  easy. 


ii6   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Who  of  those  who  have  broken  up  the  Pentateuch 
into  so  many  documents  have  attempted  to  separate 
Erckmann  from  Chatrian,  or  Besant  from  Rice,  in 
the  two  series  of  fiction  produced  by  those  literary 
pairs  ?  This  frequently  uttered  challenge  is  per- 
fectly fair  and  to  the  point. 

Then  to  what  extremes  have  ingenious  writers 
gone  in  finding  strains  of  one  writer  in  another; 
discrediting,  for  instance,  Milton,  who  has  taken 
his  place  with  the  immortals,  because  of  his  large 
indebtedness  to  Du  Bartas,  ascribing  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare  to  Bacon,  and  so  forth.  We 
are  here  on  difficult  ground,  where  learning  has 
often  proved  mere  lumber,  where  critical  faculty 
has  gone  astray,  and  fine  literary  taste  been  at 
fault. 

But  those  natural  difficulties  are  vastly  increased 
when  you  take  into  account  the  exceptional  con- 
ditions of  the  Old  Testament  problem. 

We  have  referred  to  the  materials  at  the  critics' 
disposal.  The  pointed  Hebrew  text  in  the  hands 
of  Hebrew  scholars  dates  back  to  the  eighth 
century,  or  thereby,  of  our  era.  Earlier  than 
that  there  are  several  translations  of  more  or 
less  value;  and  preceding  these  the  Septuagint, 
begun  in  the  first  half  of  the  third  century  B.C., 
and  finished  probably  about  130  B.C.  These  are 
the  documents.  We  have  also  in  the  book  called 
by  his  name,  some  knowledge  of  Ezra's  Pentateuch. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     117 

Critics  believe  that  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  came 
into  possession  of  that  people  about  the  same  time. 
But  beyond  these  we  have  nothing. 

In  English  literature  we  have  numerous  external 
standards  of  comparison.  The  age  of  Chaucer, 
"  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth,"  the 
period  of  Dryden  and  Pope,  and  the  Victorian 
era,  are  all  well-defined  epochs  of  literary  activity, 
with  marked  qualities  of  their  own.  So  that  if 
any  hitherto  unknown  poem  turned  up,  almost 
certainly  it  could  be  relegated,  if  not  to  an 
individual  author,  to  its  own  time. 

There  are,  however,  no  external  standards  out- 
side the  sacred  writings  by  which  to  judge  of 
their  date  and  authorship.  Everywhere  is  one 
blank.  Here  you  have  the  singular  phenomenon 
of  a  people  unmarked  otherwise  by  literary  faculty, 
constructive  talent,  or  creative  genius,  yea,  with 
significant  lacks  in  their  nature  in  all  these  direc- 
tions, producing  the  most  magnificent  literary 
monument  of  antiquity.  We  possess  this  literature 
in  the  original  language  of  the  people,  not  as 
Ezra  left  it,  but  as  'it  came  from  the  hands  of 
Jewish  scholars  far  down  the  Christian  centuries. 
What  critics  attempt  is,  disregarding  tradition,  by 
such  light  as  they  can  gather  from  a  text  which 
they  believe  to  have  been  put  together  in  an 
utterly  unhistorical  order,  to  assign  each  fragment 
its  place,  and  to  separate  parts  of  one  story,  and 


ii8   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

even  limbs  of  one  sentence,  and  put  between  them 
gulfs  of  hundreds  of  years. 

That  may  be  all  very  easy  and  necessary  from 
the  point  of  view  of  envisaging  the  thought  of  the 
critics.  But  when  we  come  to  the  further  point, 
whether  all  this  is  matter  of  fact,  whether  this 
history,  which  is  not  only  one  body  but  breathes 
one  spirit,  is  really  made  up  of  an  elaborate  mosaic 
glued  together  by  imagined  history  and  an  after- 
wards imposed  theory ;  when  we  ask  ourselves 
whether  the  critics  of  this  late  age  have  the  data 
for  such  an  analysis,  we  must  be  allowed  to  say 
that  we  have  the  gravest  doubt.  The  very 
historical  vacuum  in  which  the  critics  have 
laboured,  making  it  easy  for  them  to  analyse 
Scripture  and  reconstruct  it  on  the  lines  of  their 
theory,  becomes  a  profound  disadvantage  when  we 
come  to  canvass  the  matter  of  fact. 

In  last  chapter  we  saw  that  the  critical  theory  is 
a  hypothesis  based  on  hypotheses,  and  now  we 
see  that  it  is  supported  by  an  unchecked  hypo- 
thetical analysis  of  Scripture.  They  do  not  get 
down  to  the  bottom  of  uncontested  reality  at  any 
one  point.  And  we  are  not  going  to  take  guesses 
raised  to  the  third  power  for  reahties. 

But  we  have  not  yet  seen  all  the  elements  of 
difficulty  making,  in  our  judgment,  the  critical 
analysis  of  Scripture  an  impossible  task. 

Literary  analysis  means  the  delicate  operation  of 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS      119 

separating  the  work  of  two  or  more  writers  from 
the  apparent  unity  of  a  single  treatise.  And  its 
weapons  are  literary — a  keen  eye  for  usage,  a 
feehng  for  style,  a  delicate  perception  of  those 
subtle  touches  of  individuality  which  give  flavour 
and  quality  to  literary  composition.  Within  the 
most  favourable  conditions,  with  many  standards 
of  comparison,  the  process  is  somewhat  uncertain. 
Critical  judgments  are  proverbially  variable.  The 
possession  of  this  gift,  too,  by  no  means  implies 
the  possession  of  other  gifts — the  just  apprecia- 
tion of  historical  evidence,  of  the  true  inwardness 
of  historical  periods,  and  so  forth.  Yet  all  these, 
and  much  more  than  these — the  possession  of 
virtual  omniscience — are  calmly  assumed  in  the 
literary  analysis  of  the  Old  Testament.  And 
remember  this  is  the  critics'  sheet-anchor.  When, 
as  in  last  chapter,  we  pointed  out  that  the  con- 
clusions of  criticism  were  a  hypothesis  based  on 
hypotheses,  they  speak  of  this  critical  analysis  of 
Scripture  as  the  demonstration  of  its  truth. 

Turn,  then,  to  the  Pentateuch,  to  which  we 
have  been  confining  ourselves  in  order  to  keep 
our  examination  within  measure.  Here  we  have 
a  work  of  very  various  contents,  but  pervaded  by 
the  sense  of  an  all-embracing  unity.  That  sense 
of  oneness  commanded  the  fullest  conviction  of 
more  than  two  thousand  years.  When  we 
examine  that  unity  we  find  that  what  links  cosmo- 


f2o  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

gonies,  genealogies,  biographies,  theophanies, 
miracles,  statutes,  ritual,  into  one  whole  is,  that 
they  all  form  part  of  one  Divine  plan,  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  one  of  the  greatest  men  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  Moses.  These  lived  as  the  con- 
stituents of  one  great  movement,  in  the  most 
regal  intellect  of  the  ancient  world.  He  saw  them 
as  such,  he  wrote  them  out  as  such.  And  till 
Christ  came,  this  story  was  the  most  uplifting 
moral  force  in  the  world. 

That  is  a  unity  of  a  unique  description,  very 
difficult  to  conceive,  even  more  difficult  to  sustain, 
but  difficult  most  of  all  to  regard  as  merely  feigned 
or  imagined.  The  man  who  would  feign  could 
not  touch  the  heights  of  moral  grandeur,  much  less 
create  the  impression  of  holiness.  The  reverent 
soul,  who  could  enter  into  such  a  splendour  of 
conception,  and  into  such  a  glory  of  Divine  purpose, 
would  never  feign. 

Remember,  too,  we  are  on  ground  of  history. 
Seti  I.  and  Rameses  II.,  contemporaries  of  Moses, 
are  as  historical  as  Cromwell  or  Napoleon.  And 
ages  before  them  we  have  in  Thothmes  III.  and 
Queen  Hatasu  personalities  that  have  left  unmis- 
takable mark  on  the  annals  of  time.  It  is  even 
part  of  the  critical  c^se  that  Moses  was  historical, 
and  that  there  is  bed-rock  of  fact  in  the  super- 
structure of  this  narrative.  There  is  perfect 
unanimity  that  the  beginnings  of  Israel  lay  here. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     121 

See  the  critics  setting  forth,  then,  on  their  work 
of  analysis.  At  first  they  began  very  tentatively. 
Astruc  pointed  out,  and  laid  great  stress  on, 
the  Jehovist  and  Elohist  documents  in  Genesis. 
But  even  those  who  contend  most  strictly  for  the 
integrity  and  inspiration  of  the  Pentateuch  are 
not  concerned  in  the  slightest  degree  to  maintain 
that  Moses,  in  relating  former  unveilings  of  God 
down  to  the  last  and  most  complete  revelation 
made  to  himself,  did  not  use  old  and  to  some 
extent  varying  traditions,  whose  joinings  are  still 
apparent. 

Criticism  has  now  travelled  far  beyond  those 
tentative  beginnings.  Not  only  has  it  cut  up  the 
narrative  into  sections,  but  it  assigns  to  each  frag- 
ment its  age.  We  are  not  dealing  with  strictly 
creative  literature,  such  as  poetry  or  philosophy, 
in  which  individual  qualities  tell,  but  with  plain 
narrative,  artless  and  unlaboured  in  structure,  re- 
flecting outward  events  like  a  pellucid  stream. 
Yet  they  profess  to  find  not  only  twin  streams 
of  narrative,  but  junctions  and  redactions  of  the 
same,  and  large  and  important  additions  incor- 
porated in  a  much  later  age. 

For  instance,  in  the  story  of  the  Flood  you  have 
passages  belonging  to  J.,  which  is  assigned  to  a 
comparatively  early  period  of  the  history,  being 
incorporated  with  E.;  and  these,  as  a  joint  narrative 
with  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  mayhap  a  century 


122   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

before  the  time  of  Amos.  And  side  by  side  with 
these  passages  you  have  long  sections  relegated  to 
the  Priests'  Code,  which  was  put  together  late  in 
the  Exile.  When  we  ask  for  the  grounds  of  this 
literary  analysis,  they  are  not  forthcoming.  We 
are  told  that  this  analysis  is  one  of  the  most 
thorough  intellectual  processes  of  the  age.  Modern 
critics  stand  upon  it,  as  maintaining  and  justifying 
their  theory.  But  very  much  of  it  is  in  the  air. 
We  have  no  independent  knowledge  of  the  literary 
tendencies  and  attainments  of  the  century  preced- 
ing Amos,  to  give  us  any  justification  for  saying  that 
J.  E.  is  a  product  of  that  time.  Between  that 
period  and  the  days  of  Moses  we  have  not  an 
external  fact  to  point  out  when  either  stream  of 
tradition,  J.  or  E.,  might  have  been  composed. 
And  when  they  dismiss  the  idea  that  the  Pentateuch 
was  virtually  written  in  the  Mosaic  age,  there  is  no 
standard  by  which  to  judge  how  much  may  have 
belonged  to  the  original  tradition. 

When  we  really  try  to  get  to  the  bottom  of 
this  disintegration,  we  find  that  the  chief  divisions 
in  this  narrative  are  not  due  to  literary  analysis  at 
all.  Some  sections  of  this  Flood-narrative  display 
a  richer  consciousness  of  God,  and  a  far  outlook 
upon  the  future.  Now  that  is  a  marked  charac- 
teristic of  the  prophets.  Therefore,  they  reason, 
these  sections  belong  to  the  late  prophetic  age. 
But  that  is  begging  the  whole  question.     How  do 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS 


123 


they  know  but  that  (as  Revelation  itself  declares) 
an  hour  of  such  terror  was  not  a  season  of  Divine 
opportunity  in  which  God  threw  light  on  the  far 
future  ?  They  answer :  Our  theory  presupposes 
a  slow,  natural  development.  But  this  literary 
analysis  was  to  be  the  chief  support  of  your  theory  ; 
yet  you  are  depending  on  your  theory  for  one 
main  branch  of  your  analysis. 

Here  you  can  see  at  a  glance  the  thoroughly 
vicious  intellectual  method  of  the  Higher  Criticism. 
The  critics  set  up  a  theory  of  the  slow  development 
of  Jewish  religion.  They  support  that  by  Well- 
hausen's  hypotheses  of  the  slow  growth  upwards 
from  nature  feasts  of  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices, 
and  of  the  gradual  development  of  the  priesthood. 
And  then,  with  much  blowing  of  trumpets,  they 
declare  that  this  theory  stands  on  a  literary  analysis, 
which  is  in  part  purely  speculative,  and  in  large 
part  depends  for  its  conclusions  on  the  theory 
which  it  pretends  to  support.  We  set  out  to 
show  good  grounds  for  believing  that  such  an 
analysis  was  impossible.  We  have  gone  much 
further,  and  exposed  a  spurious  method,  false  to 
every  law  of  evidence,  which  deserves  repro- 
bation. 

Secondly.  Consider  the  complex  and  elusive 
character  of  this  analysis.  Such  is  our  deliberate 
view  of  the  nature  of  this  disintegration.  To  put 
the  matter  on  the  lowest  ground,  we  have  here  no 


124   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

manner  of  security  that  we  have  got  out  to  the 
real  facts,  and  to  the  actual  manner  in  which  the 
Pentateuch  was  built  up.  The  theory  of  the 
critics  is  envisaged — that  is  all. 

The  same  conclusion  is  borne  out  by  another 
line  of  remark.  Life  is  an  earnest  business.  Now 
and  again  we  have  instances  of  human  eccentricity, 
but  human  life  is  not  spent  in  making  and  unravel- 
ling puzzles.  The  exigencies  of  being  keep  men 
close  to  reality.  The  law  of  parsimony  holds 
here.  It  is  quite  possible  that  in  the  documents 
of  a  nation,  which  had  lived  to  purpose  in  the 
world,  there  might  be  works  of  composite  author- 
ship. And  if  analysts  succeeded  in  dissecting  them 
so  that  they  stood  out  distinct  compositions,  by 
internal  qualities  and  marks  of  time,  then  we  might 
accept  them,  all  the  more  readily  if  their  separa- 
tion made  the  literature  as  a  whole  harmonious. 
But  if  separation  lead  to  more  separation,  if  in 
every  separate  section  men  see  new  sub-divisions, 
and  if  even  these  do  not  suffice,  but  we  must 
bring  in  theories  of  further  editing  and  misplacing 
and  transposing  to  account  for  what  we  find  ;  and 
if,  still  further,  this  elaborate  analysis  in  one  part 
produces,  not  the  harmony  of  the  whole,  but 
greater  excesses  of  critical  analysis  in  other  parts, 
what  would  the  average  common  sense  of  the 
world  say  ?  They  would  declare  that  the  critics 
were  hunting  false  analogies,  misreading  the  signifi- 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     125 

cance  of  apparent  resemblances  and  discrepancies, 
and  had  blundered. 

That  is  the  precise  situation  in  which  we  find 
ourselves  here.  There  is  an  apparent  agreement 
on  certain  main  narratives — the  Jehovist,  the 
Elohist  (united  into  J.  E.),  the  Book  of  th^  Cove- 
nant, the  Deuteronomist,  and  the  Priests'  Code. 
But  when  we  look  more  narrowly,  there  is  not  one 
of  these  that  is  not  more  or  less  composite. 
Take  the  early  narratives  J.  and  E.,  and  according 
to  Professor  G.  F.  Moore,  a  writer  of  repute,^ 
behind  these  there  was  a  common  stock  from  which 
they  both  drew.  Professor  Adam  Smith  thinks 
these  writers  are  linguistically  hardly  to  be  dis- 
tinguished. Professor  Moore  marks  a  difference 
of  individuality  and  of  religious  standpoint,  which 
he  must  have  discerned  through  their  words. 
Then  these  are  united  by  the  redactor,  who  seems 
to  have  used  great  liberty,  sometimes  quoting 
directly,  sometimes  closely  interweaving  so  as  to 
baffle  analysis,  sometimes  adding  matter  of  his 
own,  harmonising  his  authors,  and  emphasising  the 
religious  motives  of  the  history.  And  with  the 
accomphshed  result  in  their  hand  in  the  Hebrew 
text  of  the  eighth  century  a.d.,  they  can  separate 
all  these  hands,  one  under  another,  through  all 
the  blurring  of  one  another's  work  of  which  these 
writers  were  admittedly  guilty ! 

1  See  "  Encyclopsedia  Biblica,"  pp.  1674-5. 


126   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

But  then  in  Genesis  and  Exodus  all  these  were 
united  with  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  and  the 
Priests'  Code.  The  Book  of  the  Covenant  is 
composite ;  the  Priests'  Code  with  which  the 
whole  was  finally  joined  in  the  later  centuries  of 
the  national  history  is  so  composite,  that  Professor 
Moore  says^:  ''It  (the  Priests'  Code)  is  rather 
to  be  compared  to  a  stratum,  the  deposit  of  a 
considerable  period,  in  which  distinct  layers  are 
to  be  seen."  To  ascertain  all  this  the  analysts 
have  just  the  text  to  which  we  have  referred.  In 
this  way  they  may  make  their  theory  visible  to  their 
own  minds,  but  where  they  are  ever  to  get 
evidence  of  its  actual  reality  passes  our  thought. 
The  very  complexity  of  the  analysis  lowers  the 
probability,  and  strengthens  the  supposition  that 
what  they  discern  are  not  the  sutures  or  joinings 
of  different  documents,  but  varying  phases  of  a 
coherent  history. 

Still  we  are  far  from  having  seen  the  com- 
plexities of  this  analysis.  In  a  plain  narrative  of 
any  degree  of  fulness  it  would  be  a  comparatively 
easy  thing  to  separate  two  stories,  each  somewhat 
full,  with  a  certain  mental  or  moral  colour  of  its 
own.  For  instance,  Mr  Froude  gives  a  very  full 
account  of  the  great  controversy  which  arose 
between  Henry  VIII.  and  the  Pope  and  the 
Emperor  about  the  former's  divorce  from  Queen 

1  '' Encyclopaedia  Biblica,"  p.  1449. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     127 

Catherine.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  piece  out 
of  that  two  narratives — one  with  an  English,  the 
other  with  a  Papal  bias — both  fairly  complete, 
and  each  with  as  good  a  title  to  be  called  a 
separate  document  as  J.  and  E.  in  Exodus. 

Where  we  would  expect  this  analysis  to  help 
us  would  be  in  the  miraculous  or  supernatural 
occurrences.  If  they  had  been  artificially  put 
together — crude  elements  of  fact  helped  out  by 
audacious  fiction — it  might  have  been  possible  to 
separate  the  archaic  foundations  of  the  story  from 
the  enlarged  interpretations  of  the  prophetic  spirit. 
Yet  just  here  they  most  conclusively  fail.  In  the 
article  ^'Exodus,"  in  Dr  Hastings'  "Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,"  we  find  this  statement  regarding  the 
Sinai  section  from  cap.  xix.  to  cap.  xl.  :  "  It  is 
generally  agreed  that  the  sources  are  much  dis- 
located, and  that  the  material  has  been  repeatedly 
revised  by  successive  editors  and  compilers.  Most 
editors  abandon  the  attempt  to  carry  through  a 
systematic  analysis  or  reconstruction.  The  system 
adopted  here  for  the  J.  E.  portions  is  that  of  Bacon, 
and  its  resort  to  the  hypothesis  of  wholesale 
transpositions  can  only  be  justified  by  the  hope- 
lessness of  less  drastic  methods  and  the  compara- 
tive harmony  and  order  which  it  introduces."^ 

Now,  let  us  pause  for  a  moment  and  look  at 
the  situation.     Here  is  a  book — the  Pentateuch 

1  Vol.  i.  pp.  808-9. 


128    THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

— which  has  come  down  from  a  remote  past,  as 
an  inspired  composition,  the  work  of  Moses. 
Josephus^  says:  ''It  becomes  natural  to  all  Jews 
immediately  and  from  their  very  birth,  to  esteem 
these  books  to  contain  divine  doctrines,  and,  if 
occasion  be,  willingly  to  die  for  them.  And  of 
them  five  belong  to  Moses,  which  contain  his  laws 
and  the  traditions  of  the  origin  of  mankind  till  his 
death."  The  same  belief,  written  broad  and  deep 
on  the  New  Testament,  has  held  ground  in  the 
Christian  Church,  almost  without  debate,  until  the 
nineteenth  century.  During  this  last  period  have 
risen  up  the  critical  theory  and  (whether  as  cause 
or  effect  we  shall  not  inquire)  this  critical 
analysis.  Both  are  speculative  adventures,  to  be 
considered  only  in  so  far  as  they  can  make  their 
position  good.  "When,  then,  attempting  a  task 
begirt  with  such  enormous  difficulties  and  uncer- 
tainties as  we  have  seen,  they  meet  with  such 
indifferent  success,  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from 
failure,  at  the  testing  places,  what  must  be  the 
common-sense  judgment  of  men  ^  Not  only  have 
critics  not  come  within  sight  of  any  proof  on 
which  a  Church  could  take  action,  but  there  is  a 
very  strong  probability  that  the  critics  have  been 
mistaken,  that  any  traces  of  separate  documents 
are  very  much  slighter  than  the  critics  have  sup- 
posed, and  that  these  disintegrating  processes  are 

1  "Against  Apion,"  i.  ch.  8. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     129 

carried  far  in  excess  of  the  actual  facts  of  the 
case. 

Third^  the  lack  of  internal  witness  to  this 
analysis. — What  we  mean  is  that  there  is  not 
such  a  commanding  number  or  quality  of  difficulties 
in  the  text  as  to  necessitate  this  disintegration. 

Before  dealing  with  this  point,  however,  we 
may  touch  on  a  difficulty  which  may  have  suggested 
itself  to  calm  and  dispassionate  minds.  They  may 
think  that,  having  respect  to  the  numbers  of 
acknowledged  scholars  who  have  been  engaged  in 
this  analysis,  and  the  acceptance  which  their  work 
has  received,  that  it  argues  presumption  to  express 
the  doubts,  and  the  more  than  doubts,  which  we 
have  uttered  regarding  this  analysis.  "  What," 
we  can  fancy  someone  saying,  "  do  you  mean  to 
assert  that  these  fine  minds  devoted  to  such  studies 
and  with  the  latest  knowledge  at  command,  have 
made  distinctions  which  had  no  existence,  separated 

without  any  justification  J.  and  E.,  and  D.  and  P. 

that  these  streams  of  tradition,  simpler  and  more 
elaborate,  more  primitive  and  later,  have  nothing 
corresponding  to  them  in  the  text  of  the  Penta- 
teuch ? " 

To  this  we  must  answer  that  no  one  can  doubt 
the  earnest  purpose  or  the  intellectual  honesty 
with  which  this  analysis  has  been  carried  on. 
But  there  is  an  explanation  which  at  once  accounts 
for   those   diversities  in   the  narrative  which  sug- 


130  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

gested  the  analysis,  and  nevertheless  points  steadily 
to  our  conclusions. 

The    error    lies    behind    the    literature,   in  the 
fundamental  view   taken   of  the  history  which  it 
narrates.      Every  great   movement  which  strikes 
into  the  centre  of  human  interests  starts  activities 
in  a  vast  variety  of  directions.     Take  the  Refor- 
mation, like  Mosaism  in  this,  that  it  sprang  from 
the  wing-stroke  of  a  mighty  spirit.     As  historians 
teach  us,  that  remarkable  movement  sent  a  new 
impulse  into  every  avenue  of  European  life.     And 
so  Mosaism  was  in  even  grander  measure  a  creative 
beginning,  a  birthday  of  the  human  spirit,  and  as 
such    lifted    the    whole    nation    to    a  new  plane. 
Everything  had  to  be   arranged   from    that    new 
covenant  centre  —  laws   of   civil   rule,    immediate 
ordinances  of  worship,  general   lines  of  principle 
which  might  later  be  carried  into  specific  detail ; 
then  the  elaborate   ritual  system   of  approach  to 
God ;  and  then  wide  outlooks  on  the  future  in  the 
spirit  of  the  covenant  relation.    This  central  creative 
influence  makes  itself  felt  at  all  these  points,  work- 
ing swiftly  and  thoroughly  under  the  influence  of 
these  Divine  energies.     History  recognises  creative, 
quietly  progressive,   and   reactionary   eras.      And 
Scripture    teaches    that    with    the  Lord  —  in  the 
Divine  administration — one  day  is  as  a  thousand 
years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day. 

The   differences  in  the  narratives,  which  have 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     131 

been  regarded  as  signs  of  divergent  authorship,  are 
facets  or  aspects  of  a  many-sided  Divine  fact,  Hving 
varieties  of  view  and  expression  and  prevaiHng 
interest,  as  under  the  povt^er  of  God  this  great 
leader  turned  from  side  to  side — to  the  religious 
or  to  the  civic  bearings,  to  the  immediate  or  remote 
issues  of  this  Divine  revelation.  And  the  diver- 
gences in  the  lav^^s  are  not  the  result  of  wide 
separation  in  time,  but  the  natural  outcome  of  the 
immediate  necessities  of  this  creative  age  in  relation 
to  the  dispensation  which  it  began.  According  to 
this  view  the  Pentateuch  is  the  starting-point  of 
the  chosen  people,  fully  equipped  in  vision  of  God, 
statute,  and  prophetic  outlook,  for  a  career  in 
covenant  relation  with  God  from  generation  to 
generation. 

In  many  other  nations,  however,  the  order  has 
been  different.  Nations  like  Rome,  which  have 
risen  to  great  power,  have  had  small  beginnings. 
And  later  generations,  elated  with  their  supremacy, 
have  been  tempted  to  glorify  the  crude  fact  of 
these  beginnings  with  positive  legend  and  pictur- 
esque detail.  Where  the  Higher  Critics,  in  our 
judgment,  have  gone  astray  is,  in  supposing,  against 
tradition  and  the  strongest  internal  evidence,  that, 
with  whatever  differences,  Jewish  sacred  history 
followed  the  same  course  of  natural  development ; 
and  in  applying  methods,  suitable  enough  in  deal- 
ing with  common  human  fact  and  growth  of  legend, 


132  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

to  a  totally  different  situation,  the  incoming  of  a 
true  revelation  of  God,  and  its  creative  influence 
on  the  life  and  institutions  of  the  people.  What 
the  critics  imagine  to  be  the  documents  of  different 
authors  and  successive  redactors,  imaginatively 
realising  an  ideal  past,  are  really  the  actual  many- 
sided  outcome  of  a  wonderful  discovery  of  God  to 
men.  This  gave  them  that  solitary  elevating 
power  which  made  Jewish  history  stand  alone  in 
the  world.  While  ideal  reconstructions,  such  as 
the  critics  suppose,  are  a  form  of  intellectual 
amusement  to  cultivated  minds,  which  have  never 
deceived  for  long  human  judgment,  or  made  a 
single  contribution  to  the  moral  advance  of  mankind. 

But  we  must  now  turn  to  another  point  of  some 
importance.  After  dealing  at  such  length  with 
this  literary  analysis,  one  is  apt  to  receive  a  severe 
shock  in  coming  across  the  statement  in  Professor 
G.  A.  Smith's  volume,^  that  the  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  mainly  historical.  He  still 
further  defines  his  meaning  at  page  ^^^  where, 
after  referring  to  the  double  accounts  of  Creation 
and  the  Flood,  he  adds :  "  It  is  on  the  presence  of 
many  such  doublets  in  the  Hexateuch  and  his- 
torical books  that  the  modern  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  based."  After  studying  such  books 
as    Driver's    "  Introduction "    and    the    elaborate 

1  '<  Modern  Criticism,  &c.,"  p.   46. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     133 

articles  in  the  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  "  and  in 
the  '^  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,"  where,  with  infinite 
labour,  documents  are  separated  on  account  of 
style,  spirit,  scope,  and  such  like  considerations, 
one  marvels  at  such  a  statement.  Leaving  that 
alone,  however,  let  us  look  at  the  facts  which  are 
relied  on  as  sufficient  to  justify  the  wholesale 
disintegration  of  Scripture. 

We  are  expressly  told  that  they  are  the  doublets 
or  double  accounts  of  the  same  event  in  Scripture. 
Let  us  look  at  them. 

The  first  is  the  two  accounts  in  Genesis  of  the 
Creation.  But  it  is  the  very  contention  of  those 
who  uphold  the  historic  unity  of  the  Pentateuch, 
that  in  an  age  of  revelation,  looking  back  from  the 
mountain-top  of  fellowship  with  God,  Moses  com- 
posed the  earlier  history,  using  such  traditional 
accounts,  oral  and  written,  as  existed,  but  seeing 
their  divine  meaning,  and  the  drift  of  purpose 
running  through  them,  in  the  light  of  present 
facts  and  experiences. 

Examine  another  instance,  as  proof  of  the  light 
grounds  on  which  the  most  sweeping  inferences 
are  made  to  rest,  and  by  which  the  most  revolu- 
tionary proposals  are  justified.  Take  a  well-known 
double  account.  In  Genesis  xxviii.  10-22  we  read 
that,  when  on  his  way  to  Laban,  the  fugitive  Jacob, 
after  the  vision  of  the  angels,  called  the  name  of 
the  place  Bethel;  while  in  Genesis  xxxv.  9-15  we 


134  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

are  told  that  he  named  it  Bethel  many  years  after, 
when  he  had  returned  from  his  servitude  under 
Laban.  Have  not  those  who  seriously  press  this, 
from  Hupfeld  downwards,  imagination  enough  to 
put  themselves  in  Jacob's  place  ?  What  did  the 
first  naming  mean  ?  Jacob  was  a  solitary  wanderer, 
coming  ere  nightfall,  leaving  on  the  morrow  "with 
his  staff  to  pass  over  Jordan."  He  had  no  power 
to  fix  the  name  for  the  community.  It  was  his 
name,  for  a  sign  between  God  and  him,  until  he 
should  return.  When  he  came  back  Jacob  showed 
a  strong  reluctance  to  return  to  Bethel  until  God, 
by  the  memory  of  his  former  experiences,  and 
using  the  name  which  was  entwined  with  these, 
urged  him  to  return.  Then  ensued  a  series  of 
observances  which  can  only  be  fully  understood  in 
the  light  of  the  earlier  narrative  in  chapter  xxviii. 
Jacob  was  now  the  head  of  a  clan.  He  said  unto 
his  household  and  all  that  were  with  him :  "  Let 
us  arise,  and  go  up  to  Bethel."  He  was  going  to 
bring  them  into  the  covenant  relation  in  which, 
hitherto,  he  had  as  an  individual  stood.  So,  though 
they  would  know  his  story  and  the  name  which  he 
had  given  to  the  place,  he  solemnly  built  an  altar 
and  said  :  This  shall  now  be  for  my  people  as  for 
myself,  Beth-el,  the  house  of  God.  Yea,  he  added 
another  El,  El  Beth-el,  as  if  to  bring  in  the  idea  of 
God,  in  His  house,  entering  into  covenant  with 
them. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     135 

And  then  came  the  further  blessing.^  In  fulfil- 
ment of  the  first  promise,  made  so  long  ago,  God 
returns  and  renews  the  covenant.  This  was  the 
crowning  moment  of  Jacob's  life.  The  covenant 
made  with  Abraham  was  to  stand  irreversibly  in 
him.  The  period  of  probation  was  at  an  end,  the 
period  of  acceptance  as  covenant  heir  had  come. 
With  this  was  entwined  the  change  of  name  to 
Israel,  first  intimated  at  Peniel.  And  at  the  close 
Jacob  repeats  the  rite  with  which  the  covenant 
was  first  made,  adding  a  drink  offering,  and  con- 
firming the  name  in  undying  association  with  God's 
covenant  promise.  If  we  are  to  leave  any  religious 
meaning  in  the  narrative  at  all,  there  could  not  be 
a  more  consistent  or  impressive  account. 

There  are  several  other  so-called  doublets  of 
less  importance  even  than  this,  such  as  the  double 
narratives  of  the  overthrow  of  Jericho  and  of  the 
siege  of  Ai.  But  we  come  to  one  which  was 
dwelt  on  by  the  late  Professor  Robertson  Smith, 
and  bulked  largely  in  the  beginnings  of  this  con- 
troversy in  our  land.  Turn  to  the  wonderful 
story  of  David  and  Goliath  in  i  Samuel  xvii. 
The  diflficulty  is  David's  double  appearance  at  the 
court  of  Saul.  According  to  that  remarkable 
scholar  the  whole  matter  was  susceptible  of  easy 
and  complete  explanation.  The  Septuagint  omits 
verses   12-31   in  chapter  xvii.,  and  from  the  fifty- 

^   XXXV.  11-15. 


136  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

fifth  verse  on  to  the  fifth  verse  of  next  chapter, 
making  the  account  free  from  difficulty.  In  other 
words,  there  were  two  accounts  mixed  up  in  our 
Bibles  quite  contradictory.  According  to  the  one, 
David  was  an  armour-bearer  at  the  court  of  Saul, 
who  went  out  to  the  conflict  with  Goliath.  Accord- 
ing to  the  other,  David  had  never  been  at  court 
at  all  until,  a  shepherd  lad,  he  was  sent  with 
provisions  to  his  brothers,  and  burst  into  fame  by 
his  offer  to  fight  the  Philistine. 

Now,  if  all  that  had  been  true,  it  would  have 
proved  a  great  deal — that  there  were  conflicting 
narratives  of  the  same  incident,  and  unskilful 
redaction  of  these  into  one.  But  in  the  very 
account  of  the  young  unknown  shepherd,  who  had 
never  been  at  court,  there  is  the  express  statement 
that  he  returned  from  Saul  to  feed  his  father's 
sheep.i  And,  strangely  enough,  while  the  critics 
cling  to  the  two  narratives,  they  differ  widely  from 
Professor  Robertson  Smith's  view.  Dr  Driver 
admits  that  the  difficulties  are  not  all  removed, 
and  is  doubtful  whether  the  Septuagint  is  to  be 
preferred  to  the  Hebrew ;  and  Wellhausen  and 
Kuenen  think  that  the  omissions  were  consciously 
made  in  the  Greek  to  get  rid  of  apparent  difficulties. 

Such  are  some  of  the  difficulties  which  surround 
what  appeared  for  long  one  of  the  plainest  in- 
stances of  different  documents   with  the  joinings 

1  Verse  15. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     137 

perfectly  apparent.  After  all,  the  seeming  dis- 
crepancies are  capable  of  genuine  reconciliation. 
These  books  are  not  mere  annals  of  external  facts, 
but  histories  with  the  profoundest  spiritual  side,  in 
which  the  unchanging  laws  of  fellowship  with  God 
are  laid  bare  to  a  spiritual  eye  with  extraordinary 
power. 

Take  the  story  as  it  stands,  and  nothing  could 
be  more  in  keeping.  A  youth,  well  grown,  on 
whom  the  seal  of  God  as  future  king  rested,  went 
as  harper  to  the  troubled  king.  Taken  from  his 
sheep,  with  the  litheness  of  the  boy  and  the  great 
limbs  of  raw  and  unformed  manhood,  he  is  made 
a  personal  attendant  on  Saul.  What  a  stir  the 
invitation  would  send  into  that  house !  Was  not 
this  God's  way  to  fulfil  His  promise  of  the  crown  ? 
So  might  the  father,  so  might  David  think.  Royal 
favour  is  fickle,  however,  and  David  returns  to  his 
sheep — not  the  first  nor  the  last  to  learn  in  bitter 
experience  that  we  cannot  anticipate  what  God 
will  do.  He  has  not  much  pleasure  at  home. 
Spiteful  at  David's  choice  and  promotion  to  court, 
his  brothers  are  jealous.  They  start  for  the  war 
with  Goliath,  while  David,  despite  his  undoubted 
prowess,  is  left  out  of  all. 

Nothing  truer  was  ever  drawn.  No  man  who 
has  done  wonderful  things  for  God  ever  lacked 
such  bitter  disillusions.  He  must  come  to  lean 
solely  on  God.     Then,  by  a  simple  circumstance 


138  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

not  of  his  seeking,  he  is  brought  at  once  into  the 
arena  of  conflict  and  victory.  That  has  rung  true 
to  myriads  of  heroic  hves  in  all  the  centuries.  As 
to  his  not  being  recognised,  he  was  just  at  that 
time  of  life  when  young  men  change  most.  ''  Thou 
art  but  a  youth,"  said  Saul  to  David  before  the 
conflict.  He  was  still  in  the  dawn  of  manhood, 
so  that  on  his  former  residence  juvenile  traits  may 
have  still  clung  to  him.  All  this,  however,  is  not 
required.  No  wonder  Saul,  distraught  and  self- 
absorbed,  did  not  discover,  in  the  man  aflame  with 
a  great  resolve,  his  submissive  boy  harper,  or  the 
handy  armour-bearer.  David  stood  braced  up  that 
morning  for  Jehovah's  service.  He  owed  nothing 
to  the  king,  he  owed  nothing,  but  for  grudges  and 
ill-will,  to  his  brethren.  He  had  leaned  upon  God, 
and  by  His  own  wonderful  working  God  brought 
forth  His  righteousness  as  light  and  His  judgment 
as  the  noonday.  When  you  have  such  flawless 
spiritual  coherence,  why  rob  a  story  of  the  finest 
qualities  by  the  very  tame  method  of  sawing  it 
in  two? 

If  these,  and  such  as  these  so-called  double 
accounts  are  the  foundations  on  which  criticism 
rests,  they  must  be  regarded  as  slender  indeed. 

And  now  we  must  very  rapidly  summarise  our 
remaining  objections.  Though  very  important 
they  are  capable  of  being  stated  in  a  few  words. 

And  Fourth^  as  heightening  the  improbability, 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     139 

these   disintegrations,  numerous,  complicated,  and 
highly  uncertain,  lead  to  further  disintegration. 

According  to  confident  statements  these  dis- 
integrations were  to  work  into  a  complete  and 
highly  superior  harmony.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  disintegration  is  going  from  bad  to  worse. 
We  have  had  many  evidences  already  how  far 
from  completeness,  and  even  from  certitude,  the 
analysis  is,  and  we  might  multiply  such  con 
fessions. 

But  there  is  one  recent  instance  so  outstanding 
that  it  may  serve  for  proof  Canon  Cheyne  is 
generally  regarded  as  one  of  the  foremost  British 
critics,  bolder  than  some,  less  hampered  by  fear  of 
consequences,  not  afraid  to  follow  his  arguments 
to  conclusions  from  which  others  would  stop  short, 
but  admired  by  all  and  supported  in  his  latest  ven- 
ture, the  "  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,"  by  leading  repre- 
sentatives of  criticism,  more  conservative  and  more 
pronounced. 

In  that  "  Encyclopaedia  Biblica  "  this  brilliant, 
restless,  versatile  spirit  returns  to  his  oft-trodden 
subject  of  Isaiah.  And  he  has  produced  a  docu- 
ment of  immense  importance  in  this  connection. 
Granted  that  he  is  in  advance  of  the  great  majority 
of  critics,  he  shows  the  unmistakable  trend  of 
critical  opinions.  In  that  article  he  institutes  a 
comparison  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  schools 
of  criticism,  taking  Kuenen  for  his  chief  exponent 


I40  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

of  the  former.  The  difference  between  the  two 
is  that  the  latter  is  infinitely  more  destructive,  re- 
gardless of  tradition,  rash  in  suggestion — reducing 
Isaiah  to  a  mass  of  broken  fragments.  Referring 
to  chapters  i.-xxxix.,  of  whose  Isaianic  authorship 
in  the  main  most  critics  were  wont  to  be  assured, 
he  says:  "It  is  too  bold  to  maintain  that  we  still 
have  any  collection  of  Isaianic  prophecies  which 
in  its  present  form  goes  back  to  the  period  of  that 
prophet."  The  second  division  is  also  highly  com- 
posite, containing  songs  inserted  in  the  prophetic 
writings,  a  prophetic  imitation  of  these  songs,  a  large 
section  ^  containing  no  works  of  the  second  Isaiah : 
the  whole  being  a  collection  of  fragments,  edited 
and  re-edited,  and  not  put  together  till  about  250 
B.C. ;  the  final  redaction  which  made  the  entire 
book  one  occurring  shortly  after. 

One  cannot  but  remember  the  strong  assertions 
made  in  former  years,  to  the  effect  that  if  the 
prophets  were  made  the  real  beginners  of  the 
Jewish  religion,  and  the  early  history  considered, 
in  its  present  form  at  least,  a  late  composition 
under  prophetic  influence,  everything  would  fall 
into  line.  But  the  actual  result  is  disastrously 
different,  and  shows  that  the  critics  have  been 
going  on  wrong  lines,  and  have  been  dealing  with 
a  literature  which  eludes  their  analysis,  being  too 
vast   for  their  grasp.      ''Whosoever  falls  on  this 

1  Chaps.  Ivi.-lxvi. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     141 

stone  shall  be  broken,  but  on  whomsoever  it  shall 
fall  it  will  grind  him  to  powder." 

Fifth. — This  whole  process  of  analysis  lacks 
external  testimony.  We  have  seen  in  part 
how  the  Old  Testament  has  been  broken  up  to 
envisage  or  shadow  forth  the  critical  theory  of  the 
origin  of  Scripture.  Now  for  all  this  we  have  not 
a  vestige  of  external  testimony.  All  tradition  is 
sternly  opposed.  One  of  the  insuperable  objec- 
tions which  the  critics  have  to  get  over,  and  which 
they  have  not  touched,  is  to  explain  how,  against 
all  the  facts  of  the  case,  the  impression  of  unity 
and  the  sense  of  sacred  authoritativeness  were 
formed.  How  did  the  Jews,  shortly  after  the 
Pentateuch  was  put  together  in  the  exile,  receive 
it  as  a  revelation  from  God  at  the  hands  of 
Moses  ? 

Nor  have  we  any  independent  example  of 
joinings  of  documents  and  editings  or  redactions, 
such  as  the  critical  theory  so  extensively  employs. 
The  only  attempt  to  furnish  such  independent 
proof  which  we  have  come  across  was  that  made 
by  Professor  Robertson  Smith,  through  a  com- 
parison of  the  Septuagint  and  the  Hebrew  text. 
He  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the  earlier  Greek  text 
of  the  Septuagint  was  briefer,  more  concise,  want- 
ing many  clauses  to  be  found  in  the  Hebrew ;  and 
he  chose  a  long  section  in  Jeremiah  xxxii.  in  proof 
of  this.     Here,  we  were  told^  was  the  process  of 


142  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

redaction  going  on.  But  in  the  selected  passage 
we  have  no  junction  of  documents,  but  simply  a 
fuller  narrative  in  the  Hebrew  than  in  the  Greek. 
Who  was  more  likely  to  preserve  the  text  with 
literal  accuracy — the  Jews,  who  believed  in  the 
writings  as  a  revelation  of  God,  or  the  Greek 
translator,  who  was  introducing  the  Scriptures  as 
literature,  not  as  a  revelation,  to  a  strange  people  ? 
Most  naturally  would  the  latter  use  liberties  with 
his  text,  omitting  and  abbreviating  the  less  interest- 
ing portions  of  his  original.  Speaking  of  Jeremiah, 
too,  a  great  scholar,  himself  a  higher  critic,  affirms 
that  "  there  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  that  the 
form  of  the  text  yielded  by  the  Greek  translator 
is  a  mutilated  and  corrupted  one,  which  arose  out 
of  the  text  preserved  to  us  in  the  Hebrew,  and  at 
a  much  later  time."  ^  And  so  the  last  semblance  of 
external  testimony  goes. 

Thus,  then,  as  fairly  and  candidly  as  possible, 
have  we  put  the  main  facts  about  this  analysis 
before  the  ju^y  of  average  men,  who  have  to  ask, 
not,  How  does  this  consort  with  the  theory?  but 
another,  and  far  more  important  question,  Has 
this  any  claim  to  be  considered  fact?  Take  this 
literature  of  the  Old  Testament  as  it  lies  in  our 
hands,  and  as  it  has  influenced  the  Jewish  people 
and  all  the  Christian  centuries.     Professor  Mar- 

1  Graf,  quoted  in  "Lex  Mosaica,"  p.  221,  n. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     143 

goliouth  says :  "  After  having  once  taken  its  place 
at  the  head  of  the  Hterature  of  the  world,  it  has 
no  intention  of  quitting  that  post."  Consider  the 
matter  how  you  will,  we  are  dealing  with  a  unique 
fact  in  the  history  of  the  world.  As  the  writer 
just  quoted  remarks,  the  lost  literatures  which 
have  recently  been  coming  to  light  "  rarely  have 
any  value  of  their  own.  Egypt  and  Assyria  have 
produced  monuments  which  were  long  lost,  but  now 
are  found  and  deciphered.  Who  reads  them  except 
out  of  mere  curiosity,  or  to  aid  him  in  some  other 
study  ?  Indian  literature  is  now  as  easy  of  access  as 
Greek.  But  who  cares  for  it  ?  "  And  yet  here  we 
have  not  a  great  people  like  any  of  those  whom  we 
have  mentioned,  but  "a  nation  which,"  as  one  who 
should  know  them  well  says,  "  of  its  own  self  could 
do  nothing  for  science  or  philosophy,  which  could  not 
observe  and  could  not  experiment,  which  could  not 
compile  a  grammar  nor  invent  a  metre  ";^  and  they 
produce  this  literature — a  Hving  whole,  a  supreme 
literary  creation,  animated  by  an  ethical  spirit  and 
world-view  which  has  moulded,  and  still  moves  the 
world. 

How  can  you  explain  such  a  fact  ?  What  the 
greatest  and  most  ingenious  nations  of  the  earth 
in  the  glory  of  their  power  failed  to  accomplish, 
how  did  the  Jews  achieve?  Was  it  by  such  a 
process   of   inversion    as    that   which    the   higher 

1  Prof.  Margoliouth's  "  Lines  of  Defence,"  pp.  245,  246 


144  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

criticism  sets  forth,  by  tesselated  work  of  pieced- 
together  prophecies,  by  crude  traditions  of  history 
and  law,  the  former  wrought  up  with  imaginative 
details  and  miraculous  accretions ;  the  latter  altered, 
elevated  in  tone,  informed  with  a  prophetic  spirit, 
and  projected  with  the  setting  of  pictorial  narrative 
into  a  heroic  past  ?  By  no  ingenuity  can  that  be 
made  in  the  slightest  degree  likely.  Not  only  is 
such  a  supposition  in  defiance  of  all  natural  proba- 
bility, the  moral  sense  rejects  the  whole  hypothesis 
as  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  plainest  canons  of 
moral  judgment  by  which,  even  in  this  imperfect 
world,  action  has  been  guided  and  opinion  has  been 
sustained.  The  words  of  Christ  cannot  be  shaken  : 
"Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of 
thistles  ?  "  Could  a  revelation  which  has  searched 
generations  of  men  with  the  fire  of  God,  and  has 
exposed  and  still  exposes  every  form  of  unrighteous- 
ness, be  itself  a  sham,  pervaded  by  a  self-witness 
which  is  a  lie,  built  of  legend,  fancy,  tradition,  by 
art  and  man's  device  ^ 

The  very  statement  of  such  suppositions  is  their 
overthrow.  By  no  possibility  could  the  critics' 
theory  and  analysis  be  the  true  explanation.  The 
result  could  not  even  be  ascribed  to  the  greatest 
constructive  genius.  God  has  lived  and  moved  in 
this  history,  as  Revelation  itself  witnesses.  God 
has  guided  the  people  in  a  way  which  wit  of  man 
could  not  preconceive  ;  and  He  has  animated  the 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     145 

penmen  to  preserve  for  all  ages  in  an  inspired 
record  the  story  of  what  He  has  done. 

That  this  will  be  the  conclusion  of  the  Church 
we  feel  to  be  as  certain  as  that  this  frame  of  things 
shall  come  to  an  end.  And  so,  instead  of  being 
reduced  to  a  lower  plane,  the  Bible  shall  stand 
forth  in  more  distinctive  glory  above  all  other 
literature,  and  command  a  deepened  reverence  as 
the  inspired  record  of  a  Divine  purpose.  This 
book  has  had  a  very  remarkable  history.  In  the 
earher  Testament  coming  down  to  us  from  the 
Jews,  and  borne  witness  to  as  inspired  by  Christ 
and  His  apostles ;  in  the  New  Testament  coming 
together  out  of  an  enormous  literature,  and  estab- 
lishing a  claim  to  being  a  Divine  Word,  by  inherent 
purity,  internal  harmony,  and  its  flawless  appeal 
to  the  divine  life  which  Christ  had  awakened — 
this  Bible  has  advanced,  century  by  century,  to 
place  and  influence  in  individual  experience  and 
in  the  Church.  The  Spirit  of  God  guiding  the 
Church,  according  to  the  promise  of  Christ,  into 
the  truth,  has  discovered  to  us  afresh,  age  by  age, 
the  value,  the  resources,  the  quahty  of  this  Divine 
Word. 

One  has  only  to  study  the  history  of  the  Church 
to  find  examples  of  this  growing  appreciation. 
When  that  great  Bible  student,  Origen,  was  sore 
pressed  by  the  critics  of  that  early  day— Ebionite, 
Gnostic  and  Greek, — secure  in  his  perception  of 


146   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  spiritual  unity  of  the  Scripture,  he  rashly  gave 
up  the  natural  sense  of  many  passages.  He  con- 
fessed that  they  contained  natural  and  moral 
impossibilities  only  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
allegorical  sense.  Looking  back,  we  can  see  that 
there  were  many  explanations,  denied  to  him, 
which  the  enlarging  experience  of  after-times 
would  bring  with  it,  and  that  things  which  he 
made  difficulties  have  become  glories.  Yet  if  he 
admits  many  things — as  impossibilities,  trivialities, 
ineptitudes — which  we  cannot  allow,  the  spiritual 
worth  of  Scripture  ravished  his  soul.  "  The  letter 
is  the  external  garb,  often  sordid  and  torn  ;  but 
the  King's  daughter  is  all  glorious  within."  ^  Even 
the  great  Augustine  said  that  he  believed  the  Bible 
on  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Magnificently 
although  he  entered  into  and  opened  out  some 
leading  principles,  he  did  not  discern  the  full 
content  of  Scripture,  nor  that  divine  harmony  of 
revealed  truth  in  which,  like  a  star,  or  rather  a 
great  constellation,  she  shines  above  all  human 
authority,  incontestably  divine. 

Then  ensued  a  long  period  of  partial  obscuration, 
when  through  the  activity  of  reason  on  the  one 
hand  and  tradition  on  the  other,  the  Scriptures  for 
centuries  were  thrown  into  the  background.  The 
Reformation  was  one  consequence  of  their  redis- 
covery,  and   all   the  currents  of  influence   which 

1  Biggs'  "  Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,"  pp.  137,  138. 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     147 

made  that  movement  a  well-head  of  new  life,  not 
only  to  the  Protestant,  but  also  by  reaction  to  the 
Catholic  nations,  and  to  great  new  free-born  nations 
that  have  since  sprung  into  being,  flowed  from 
renewed  contact  of  heart  and  head  with  the  living 
Word  of  God.  For  the  first  time  the  Word  of 
God  rose  to  its  true  place  as  the  supreme  standard, 
the  source  of  public  instruction,  the  cherished 
treasury  of  spiritual  teaching  and  inspiration  to  the 
great  masses  of  the  people.  Translated  into  the 
languages  of  the  Western  European  nations,  it  has 
now  been  diffused  in  hundreds  of  different  tongues 
and  dialects  among  countless  millions  all  over 
the  earth. 

Thus  far,  however,  each  new  victory,  while 
lifting  peoples  to  a  loftier  platform  of  individual 
and  social  existence,  opened  up  new  avenues  of 
conflict.  From  subjection  to  the  tyranny  of  Roman 
authority,  a  growing  number  went  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  liberty.  Leaving  the  standpoint  of 
the  Reformation,  which  was  that,  quite  apart 
from  the  authority  of  the  Church,  the  individual 
soul  had  the  liberty  and  the  power  of  coming 
immediately  to  God,  they  construed  this  into 
something  very  different — the  right  and  power 
of  dealing  with  the  problem  of  existence  for 
themselves.  Christianity  was  regarded  as  a  repro- 
duction of  natural  religion,  and  great  efforts 
were    put    forth    to    break    down    miracles    and 


148    THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

prophecy  as  the  evidences  of  a  supernatural 
revelation. 

That  deistic  controversy  was  silenced  by  superior 
argument,  and  still  more  by  the  resurgence  of 
the  spiritual  as  a  great  vital  force.  The  blood- 
less reasonings  yielded  to  current  facts  of  re- 
newal, moral  transfiguration,  spiritual  joy.  The 
waves  of  spiritual  revival  raising  the  national 
temperature,  swept  the  new  generation  within 
the  spell  of  wider  ethical  obligations  and  world- 
wide missionary  horizons.  From  another  point, 
however,  men  returned  in  the  last  century 
to  the  unsolved  problem.  Granted  that  the  old 
deistic  position  was  too  narrow,  and  that  the 
spiritual  is  a  factor  in  the  life  of  man,  may  not 
the  whole  movement  embracing  Judaism  and 
Christianity  be  explained  on  the  lines  of  natural 
development  ? 

We  have  been  following  in  these  four  chapters, 
and  must  still  follow  in  those  that  remain,  the 
most  elaborate  effort  ever  made  to  eliminate 
miracle  and  the  direct  action  of  supernatural 
forces  from  the  Old  Testament.  The  effort  has 
in  a  sense  been  well  meant,  to  save  the  Bible  by 
reducing  it  in  the  main  within  hues  of  natural 
evolution.  But  we  have  seen  how,  tried  by  the 
average  cultured  judgment  of  men,  it  has  broken 
down.  There  are  no  materials  in  this  theory  for 
any  consistent  view  of  Scripture,  on  critical  lines, 


THE  DISINTEGRATING  PROCESS     149 

which  a  Christian  Church  could  put  before  her 
beheving  people.  Yea,  it  is  impossible  that  they 
should  ever  gain  a  verdict  from  the  common  sense 
of  mankind.  This  Book,  which  they  presumed 
to  disintegrate  into  innumerable  fragments,  has 
broken  them.  What  they  have  conclusively 
proved  is  that,  whatever  be  the  truth  of  the  case, 
they  cannot  be  right.  "  On  whomsoever  it  shall 
fall,  it  will  grind  him  to  powder." 

Indeed,  while  the  Bible  has  been  suffering  such 
indignities,  believing  men,  convinced  beyond  all 
doubt  of  its  indestructible  unity  and  authentic 
self-witness,  have  been  coming  to  see  that  the 
solution  of  present  difficulties  lies  in  rising  to  a 
higher  view  of  it  than  the  Church  has  ever  held. 
Round  the  brows  of  that  Old  Testament  is 
gathering  a  new  glory,  as  we  behold  in  the 
Mosaic  revelation  the  one  historical  arrest,  in  a 
universal  human  declension  from  a  purer  to  a 
more  degraded  faith — an  arrest  made  by  God  in 
one  nation  and  among  one  people,  an  arrest  by 
which  He  lifted  them  out  of  their  own  dreams  into 
a  real  fellowship  with  Himself.  Thus  He  started  a 
covenant  history,  which  prepared  the  way  for  that 
fuller  revelation  by  which  the  whole  world  shall 
be  brought  to  Christ's  feet. 

Anthropology,  the  science  of  religion,  and 
whatever  we  have  come  to  know  of  the  history 
of    primitive    peoples,     combine    to    throw    that 


150   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Mosaic  revelation,  with  the  whole  subsequent 
development,  into  more  magnificent  relief,  into 
solitary  majesty  among  all  the  movements  of 
the  ancient  world.  And  all  these  heated  con- 
troversies will  pass,  like  a  morning  cloud,  as 
mere  human  misjudgments  of  a  fact  which 
is  Divine ! 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  SCRIP- 
TURE INADEQUATE  AND  IMPROBABLE 

Psa.  cxix.  80:   "  Let  my  heart  be  sound  in  Thy  statutes,  that  I  be 
not  ashamed." 

We  have  given  at  some  length  our  reasons  for 
dissatisfaction  with  both  the  critical  hypothesis 
and  the  analysis  and  disintegration  of  Scripture  on 
which  it  is  professedly  based.  We  now  proceed 
on  another  line,  and  complete  our  demonstration 
by  approaching  the  subject  from  another  point  of 
view.  However  they  have  come,  whether  legiti- 
mately or  illegitimately,  the  critical  processes  are 
with  us.  Here  is  their  reconstructed  Old  Testa- 
ment, lucidly  presented  to  us  with  every  advantage 
of  learning  and  expository  talent,  and  supported 
by  a  great  array  of  authorities. 

Have  we  in  this  critical  reconstruction,  so  novel, 
so  destructive,  and  in  such  startling  revolt  from 
tradition,  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  origins 
and  development  of  this  great  literature  ? 

At  this  point  we  must  take  everything  in  and 
about  these  Scriptures  into  account,  for  everything 

151 


152  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

which  has  come  out  of  them  in  respect  of  spirit 
and  result  must  have  had  place  in  their  production. 

We  are  face  to  face,  then,  with  a  great  and 
difficult  problem.  Thank  God,  we  have  come  out 
of  the  Babylonish  captivity  of  Agnosticism.  No 
thinker  who  would  command  wide  acceptance  can 
affi)rd  to  treat  the  spiritual  as  mere  illusion.  The 
reality  of  the  spiritual  as  a  social  force,  as  an 
element  of  human  experience  and  a  reigning 
quality  of  human  character,  is  beyond  dispute. 
Through  recent  controversies  we  are  rising  to  a 
juster  conception  of  the  spiritual  as  an  original 
and  distinct  —  indeed,  the  supreme — endowment 
of  man.  As  by  the  senses  we  can  go  out  and 
take  cognizance  of  an  external  world,  so  in  the 
spiritual  region  we  can  take  cognizance  of  God  as 
Supreme  Governor  to  be  obeyed  and  Father  to  be 
loved. 

We  have  thus  referred  to  an  unmistakable  trend 
in  current  thought,  because  it  imposes  upon  us 
special  obligations. 

The  great  defect  of  this  whole  movement  consists 
in  this,  that  it  has  taken  far  more  account  of  a 
so-called  natural  development  than  of  the  distinctive 
workings  of  spiritual  law,  spiritual  probabilities, 
and  sequences,  and  harmonies. 

But  these  cannot  be  overlooked.  The  spiritual 
is  a  kingdom  standing  on  foundations  of  fact  as 
much   as   any   other  kingdom,    supported   by  dis- 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   153 

tinctive  manifestations  and  results.  As  much  as 
the  vegetable  or  animal  kingdom,  or,  to  come 
closer,  as  much  as  the  physical  or  intellectual 
sphere  in  man,  this  kingdom  or  sphere  has  its  own 
order  of  facts,  its  own  processes  and  tests,  and 
reaches  out  to  its  own  ends ;  and  whatever  else  a 
theory  of  Scripture  must  meet,  since  it  purports 
to  be  a  message  from  God  to  the  spiritual  part  of 
man,  it  must  meet  these. 

The  Bible  is  far  more  than  the  greatest  literary 
monument  of  the  ancient  world.  Not  only  does 
it  live  —  in  a  sense  which  is  true  of  no  other 
literature — as  a  moulding  force  on  the  institutions 
of  this  modern  era,  not  only  has  it  an  unexhausted, 
and  apparently  imperishable,  message  for  human 
beings  both  in  public  and  private  relations ;  it 
carries  with  it  a  more  august  distinction.  Professor 
G.  A.  Smith  says,  regarding  the  Old  Testament: 
"Above  all,  He  (Christ)  fed  His  own  soul  with 
its  contents,  and  in  the  great  crises  of  His  life 
sustained  Himself  upon  it  as  upon  the  living  and 
sovereign  Word  of  God."^ 

Now  since  that  is  so,  would  it  not  be  unpar- 
donable to  investigate  the  sources  of  Scripture — 
whatever  attention  may  be  needed  for  the  human 
side — without  reflecting  that  God  must  have  been 
at  work  in  these  from  the  beginning ;  without 
going   further  and   asking  whether  we   have  any 

^  "Modern  Criticism,  etc.,"  p.  ii. 


154  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

other  independent  evidence  as  to  how  God  acts  in 
coming  into  relation  with  man,  and  what  course 
His  other  revelation  of  Himself  has  pursued  ?  Yet 
this  necessary  department  of  their  critical  inquiry 
our  critics  have  left  practically  unwrought ! 

Allow  one  more  preliminary  consideration. 
There  is  a  powerful  and  persistent  tendency 
among  thinkers  in  all  fields,  which  is  a  great 
puzzle  to  plain  people  who  live  close  to  the  facts 
of  life  and  accept  them  in  their  multiplicity,  and 
that  is,  the  tendency  to  carry  back  all  forms  of  life 
and  force  to  one  root  principle.  Now  with  this 
we  have  no  quarrel  if  men  keep  true  to  all  the 
facts  of  experience.  We  believe  that  there  is  one 
root  for  all  existence — matter,  life,  mind — in  the 
Will  of  God.  But  what  we  have  to  point  out  is, 
that  there  is  a  strong  temptation  to  thinkers  to 
leave  out  one  or  more  classes  of  facts,  in  order  to 
reach  all  the  sooner  to  their  root  principle.  And 
so  a  thousand  times  the  world  has  heard  the  shouts 
of  victory  over  readings  of  the  riddle  of  existence 
which  in  less  than  a  generation  became  effete. 

We  have,  therefore,  to  be  on  our  guard,  even 
with  the  wisest,  when  they  bring  some  new  ex- 
planation, which  is  going  to  account  for  everything 
far.  more  completely  than  any  previous  view.  Does 
it  account  for  everything  ?  If  it  sets  some  things 
in  fresh  light,  may  not  other  and  more  important 
matters  be  slurred  over  ?     And  may  not  the  fresh 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   155 

light  be  fragmentary  and  superficial,  springing  from 
comparison  of  things  that  differ — merely  the  move- 
ment of  the  kaleidoscope,  not  an  alteration  of  the 
facts  ? 

We  have  taken  occasion  to  compare  the  views 
of  many  distinguished  men  on  what  they  claim 
to  have  been  achieved  through  this  critical  re- 
construction, and  we  have  been  struck,  amid  all 
differences  of  individual  view,  with  the  common 
assumption  which  underlies  them,  and  the  common 
point  of  view. 

Let  us  put  first  the  loftiest  expression  of  this 
claim  by  a  man  in  the  first  rank,  not  of  critics,  but 
of  theologians,  Principal  Fairbairn,  of  Oxford.  In 
his  great  work,  "Christ  in  Modern  Theology," ^ 
he  says :  "  Criticism  has,  by  bringing  the  Sacred 
Books  into  relation  with  sacred  history,  done 
something  to  restore  them  to  their  real  and  living 
significance.  By  binding  the  Book  and  the  people 
together,  and  then  connecting  both  wath  the  pro- 
vidential order  of  the  world,  it  has  given  us  back 
the  idea  of  God  who  lives  in  history  through  His 
people,  and  a  people  who  live  for  Him  through 
His  Word." 

Professor  Curtis,  after  mentioning  what  he 
regards  as  the  permanent  elements  of  the  Old 
Testament,  goes  on  to  affirm  that,  ''  Modern  criti- 
cism has  not  impaired  these  permanent  elements. 

1  p.  508. 


156  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Their  authority,  which  is  that  of  truth,  still  re- 
mains, and  the  Old  Testament  has  been  transmuted 
from  a  mechanical  record  of  doctrines,  and  of  forced 
Divine  manifestations,  into  a  book  of  genuine  his- 
torical life,  an  epic  of  salvation,  showing  the  living 
process  of  God's  revelation  through  Israel."  ^ 

With  reference  to  the  results  of  critical  recon- 
struction, the  late  Professor  Robertson  Smith,  in 
the  opening  lecture  of  his  "  Old  Testament  in  the 
Jewish  Church,"  2  says:  "The  language  of  these 
words  (of  Scripture)  is  so  clear  that  no  readjust- 
ment of  their  historical  setting  can  conceivably 
change  the  substance  of  them.  Historical  study 
may  throw  a  new  light  on  the  circumstances  in 
which  they  were  first  heard  or  written;  but  the 
plain,  central,  heartfelt  truths  that  speak  for  them- 
selves, and  rest  on  their  own  indefeasible  worth, 
will  assuredly  remain  to  us.  No  amount  of  change 
in  the  background  of  a  picture  can  make  white 
black  or  black  white,  though  by  restoring  the 
right  background  where  it  has  been  destroyed,  the 
harmony  and  balance  of  the  whole  composition 
may  be  immeasurably  improved." 

These  are  the  weightiest  statements  which  we 
could  find  in  regard  to  the  benefits  of  this  critical 
reconstruction  of  Scripture.  Yet  with  all  respect  for 
these  notable  names  we  have  no  option  but  to  join 
issue  with   them.      Indeed,   taken   together,  they 

^  Hastings'  '<  Bible  Dictionary,"  p.  604.  2  p^  28. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  157 

contain  among  them  the  chief  grounds  of  our 
objections. 

To  begin  with  the  second.  Professor  Curtis 
institutes  a  contrast  between  "genuine  historical 
life"  and  '' forced  Divine  manifestations."  Evi- 
dently, according  to  him,  we  can  only  have  history 
when  men  are  left  to  develop  slowly  within  natural 
conditions  and  by  infinitesimal  stages,  as  among 
other  nations. 

Here  is  the  naturalistic  assumption  of  which  we 
spoke.  To  bring  in  a  direct  Word  and  purpose 
of  God,  raising  the  level  of  the  national  life  and 
controlling  its  subsequent  movements,  is  equivalent, 
in  his  view,  to  the  destruction  of  a  genuine 
historical  life  ! 

Did  he  forget,  when  making  such  a  statement, 
that  we  had  an  example  of  just  such  a  special 
spiritually-controlled  development  .^^  In  Christ  we 
have  a  Divine  manifestation  which  he  would  be 
very  far  from  calling  "forced";  and  associated 
with  this  creative  revelation  of  God  we  have  a 
great  sum  of  doctrine  which  an  unbelieving  critic 
might  term,  in  Professor  Curtis's  words,  "a 
mechanical  record  of  doctrines."  These  started 
a  new  progress  on  a  loftier  spiritual  plane.  But 
so  far  from  annihilating  "  genuine  historical  Hfe," 
Christianity  is  the  great  creator  of  history. 

These  are  the  words  of  Professor  Flint,  quoted 
from  his  "Philosophy  of  History,"  recast  and  pub- 


158  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

lished  in  1893:  "Christianity  by  creating  the 
Church  enormously  enlarged  and  enriched  history. 
...  It  added  immensely  to  the  contents  of 
history,  and  radically  changed  men's  conception 
of  its  nature.  It  at  once  caused  political  history 
to  be  seen  to  be  only  a  part  of  history,  and  carried 
even  into  the  popular  mind  the  conviction — of 
which  hardly  a  trace  is  to  be  found  in  the  classical 
historian — that  all  history  must  move  towards 
some  general  human  end,  some  Divine  goal."  ^ 

History,  then,  is  not  inseparably  associated  with 
a  natural  development,  but  woke  to  fulness  of  life 
when  made  conscious  of  a  positive,  creative,  Divine 
purpose,  working  to  foreseen  ends  through  all 
human  affairs.  We  intend  devoting  a  whole 
chapter — the  last — to  show  that  if  we  accept  the 
self-witness  of  revelation,  and  receive  the  Penta- 
teuch as  the  genuine  account  of  a  true  Divine 
unveiling,  we  have  a  history  of  a  most  remarkable 
kind,  true  to  universal  spiritual  fact  and  law,  dis- 
covering, despite  all  failure  and  error  on  the  part 
of  man,  an  education  of  the  human  spirit  for  the 
full  revelation  of  God  which  was  yet  to  come. 
We  shall  come  to  regard  it  as  the  most  remarkable 
human  document,  next  to  that  New  Testament 
with  which  it  stands  imperishably  joined,  worthy 
indeed,  because  of  one  informing  Divine  Spirit,  to 
be  called,  in  Professor  Curtis's  words,  "  an  epic  of 

1  p.  62. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  159 

salvation,    showing    the    living    process    of    God's 
revelation  through  Israel." 

But  there  is   a  further  criticism,  more   central 
and   searching.      This   American   writer   instances 
the   Old  Testament's    doctrine  of  God,  its  view 
of   man's    experiential    relation    to    God,    and    its 
being   a   book  of  hope,  as  the   three   permanent 
elements    of    the    Old    Testament.      He    adds  : 
"Their  authority,   which    is    that    of  truth,    still 
remains."     Yes,    they   will    stand    for  what    they 
are   worth    among    the    spiritual    findings    of   the 
race.     But  that  was  not  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture   as    Jesus,    as    Paul,    as    the    author   of   the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  conceived  it,  and  as  has 
been  held   by  all  the  Christian  centuries,  and  is 
still  held   in   every  creed   of  Christendom.      For 
them,    God    had    revealed    a    Divine    purpose    of 
grace,  chosen   a   peculiar  people,   for    the    educa- 
tion of  their  moral  life  engirt  them  with  a  system 
of  law,  and  so  started  a  covenant  history.     Now, 
on  the  critical  supposition,  that  does  not  remain. 
In  other  words,  what  of  all  is  most  precious — the 
character  of  this  book  as  an  authoritative  revela- 
tion  of   God,   verified   in   experience   and  proved 
in  result — disappears.     Here   is  the  finished  pro- 
duct of  nineteenth-century  critical  science :  a  re- 
constructed Old  Testament.     But  whatever  virtue 
may  be  in  the  fragments,   the  breath  of  creative 
Divine    purpose    that    made    them    one — without 


i6o  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

any  ambiguity,  an  express  revelation  from  the 
unseen  God — that  has  vanished ! 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  remarks  of  Principal 
Fairbairn.  Despite  the  tone  of  finality  and  all- 
spanning  comprehension  in  his  words,  they  do 
not  bear  very  close  examination.  He  says  that 
criticism  has  brought  "  the  sacred  books  into 
relation  with  sacred  history."  Evidently,  then, 
they  were  not  in  relation  before.  The  sacred 
books  misrepresented  the  real  course  of  sacred 
history.  But  as  the  only  knowledge  that  Prin- 
cipal Fairbairn,  or  the  critics,  can  have  of  the 
sacred  history  is  derived  from  the  sacred  books, 
we  would  like  to  know  how  they  have  discovered 
all  this.  Manifestly,  that  can  only  be  from  a 
subjective  judgment  of  what  is  probable  and  what 
improbable,  what  early  and  what  late.  And  those 
judgments  must  spring  from  a  theory  in  their  own 
minds  regarding  human  progress — what  he  calls 
"  the  providential  order  of  the  world." 

Here  the  self-witness  of  Revelation,  the  idea  of 
progress  from  a  Divine  creative  beginning,  is  ruled 
out  as  absolutely  as  by  the  extremest  critic ; 
although  how  this  can  be  done  by  a  Christian 
theologian  who  has  before  his  eyes  an  equivalent 
fact,  in  a  Christian  revelation  starting  and  con- 
trolling a  Christian  era,  passes  our  conception. 

But  there  is  room  for  even  more  drastic  criti- 
cism.    This  judgment  on  a  side  issue  in  his  volume 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   i6i 

coincides  with  a  main  contention  in  the  constructive 
part,  which  many  of  his  readers  felt  to  be  de- 
fective, if  not  wrong.  And  it  may  be  interesting 
to  notice  in  the  case  of  so  keen  and  honest  a 
mind,  how  a  view  of  doctrine  affects  our  behef 
in  criticism,  and  our  judgment  about  criticism 
alters  the  accents  in  our  theology. 

Principal  Fairbairn  is  one  of  those  who  would 
remove  redemption  from  the  centre  of  the  evan- 
gelical scheme — not,  of  course,  ignoring  it,  but 
declining  to  give  it  the  central  and  regulative  place.^ 
The  great  inspired  writer  who  does  unfold  the 
Christian  providential  order  of  the  world — the 
apostle  Paul — as  manifestly,  yea,  with  a  force 
which  transcends  all  comparison,  does  put  re- 
demption in  the  very  core  of  revelation.  Sin  has 
frustrated  the  Divine  purpose  in  creation,  and 
with  ineffable  ingenuity  and  grace,  God  has,  in 
removing  by  atonement  the  barrier  of  sin,  so 
revealed  Himself  in  His  essential  attributes  of 
love  and  holiness,  as  to  reach  out  in  Christ  to 
the  triumph  and  fulfilment  of  His  eternal  design. 
Now  such  a  view  of  the  providential  order  of 
the  world  does  demand  a  specific  form  of  revela- 
tion. God  must  come  forth  to  those  who  are 
more    or    less    consciously    estranged  ;    He    must 

1  <<We  cannot  accept  Luther's  dictum  that  justification  by  faith  is 
the  article  of  a  standing  or  falling  Church."  "Christ  in  Modern 
Theology,"  p.  650. 

L 


i62  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

appoint  the  conditions  on  which  He  will  deal 
with  man.  The  whole  initiative  must  come  from 
Him,  in  some  purpose  of  grace  furnished  from 
first  to  last  out  of  the  Divine  wisdom  and  love. 
And  human  history  is  the  movement  forward 
from  the  Divine  impact,  in  response,  submission, 
kindling  of  new  aims  and  activities,  new  sym- 
pathies and  aspirations, — in  all  the  efflorescence 
of  ideals  and  sacrifices  which  has  ever  blossomed 
from  human  nature  fertilised  by  contact  with  God. 

Such  was  the  form  of  revelation  in  the  New 
Testament ;  such,  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
(if  the  Bible  view  of  man  be  right),  must  have 
been  its  form  under  the  old  economy.  And  just 
because  this  notable  writer  does  not  allow  in  his 
system  for  the  central  redemptive  note  of  Scrip- 
ture, is  he  led  away  to  another  idea  of  the  provi- 
dential order  of  the  world  as  that  of  a  normal 
growth  upward,  God  gradually  dawning  on  the 
consciousness  of  men,  and  what  we  regard  as 
the  Word  of  God  gradually  taking  shape  in 
human  thought  in  tentative  efforts  to  realise 
the  Divine,  in  myth,  in  statute,  in  imaginative 
reproductions  of  crude  natural  fact,  in  predictive 
moral  judgment,  and  so  forth. 

That  is  not  an  alternative  view,  but,  in  our 
judgment,  an  elimination  of  the  creative  element, 
and  a  reduction  of  the  Bible  from  the  solitary 
plane   on  which   it  has  stood,  to  proximity  with, 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  163 

if   in    acknowledged    superiority    to,    the    ethnic 
scriptures  of  India  and  China. 

Referring  now  to  the  words  of  Professor 
Robertson  Smith,  do  we  not  see  beyond  dispute 
that  in  this  Higher  Criticism  there  is  more  than 
"  adjustment  of  historic  setting "  ?  There  is  a 
changed  conception  of  man  as  the  subject  of 
grace,  and  of  God's  aim  and  manner  of  dealing 
in  revelation.  "  The  plain,  central,  heartfelt 
truths "  may  be  there,  to  stand  for  what  ethical 
validity  may  be  in  them.  But  where  now  is 
the  authoritative  revelation  in  which  God  makes 
definite  promises  to  men,  and  pledges  His  Divine 
faithfulness  to  fulfil  them  ? 

The  critical  reconstruction  of  Scripture,  then, 
is  inadequate.  Thus  pulled  down  and  built  up, 
the  Old  Testament  is  a  book  out  of  which  the 
very  soul  of  revelation  has  gone.  Surely  it  is 
quite  too  late  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth 
century,  after  this  Book  has  differentiated  itself 
from  all  other  sacred  books,  by  manifesting  the 
effects  and  putting  forth  the  power  of  a  Divine 
revelation,  speculatively  to  assert  that  all  the  time 
the  Book  has  been  standing  on  a  far  lower  level 
than  we  believed !  Here,  indeed,  improbabihty 
attaches  to  the  new  theories  rather  than  to  the  old 
beliefs.     "  For  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

Having  rebutted  the  claims  advanced  for  this 
reconstruction,  let  us  now  point  out  directly,  that 


1 64  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  reconstruction  is  inadequate  and  improbable — 
first,  from  the  critics'  own  chosen  ground  of  natural 
development ;  and,  secondly,  from  the  ground  which 
the  Old  Testament  self-evidently  occupies  of  being 
a  direct  revelation. 

I.  From  their  own  ground  of  natural  develop- 
ment we  wish  to  show  that,  if  all  the  facts  are 
taken  into  account,  the  reconstruction  by  the  critics 
is  inadequate  and  improbable. 

In  the  opinions  we  have  just  quoted,  and  in 
the  outstanding  features  of  the  criticism  which  in 
former  chapters  we  described,  we  have  seen  that 
the  leading  aim  of  the  critics  was  to  bring  Bible 
history  into  line  with  ^  what  they  regard  as  the 
natural  course  of  human  development.  They  have 
throughout  paid  infinitely  more  attention  to  har- 
mony with  scientific  theories  of  progress  than  to 
congruity  with  spiritual  fact.  Yet  we  are  bold  to 
afiirm  that  on  their  chosen  ground  they  have  not 
succeeded.  Their  reconstruction  is  thoroughly  out 
of  keeping  with  facts  that  are  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  the  nations  around.  It  is  not  our  inten- 
tion to  take  sides  with  either  the  progression  theory 
or  the  degeneration  theory  of  human  advancement. 
With  the  majority  of  anthropologists  the  critics 
assume  the  former,  and  for  our  purpose  we  are  quite 
prepared  to  take  their  ground.  The  reader  will 
remember  how  Professor  G.  A.  Smith  traced  back 
Israel's  beginning  to  mythical  origins  in  the  patri- 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION    165 

archs,  and  how  Wellhausen  derived  the  sacrificial 
system  of  Israel  from  nature  festivals.  In  other 
words,  the  Jewish  people,  in  their  religion  and 
culture,  moved  up  through  the  same  gradual 
stages  as  other  nations.  Therefore  (without  any- 
ground  of  fact,  but  simply  to  conform  to  their 
theory)  the  Decalogue,  the  Levitical  legislation, 
and  all  the  more  developed  conceptions  of  Israel's 
early  history,  are  brought  down  to  late  dates. 

But  all  this  is  done  in  oblivion  of  certain  un- 
contested facts,  which  are  quite  independent  of 
any  theory,  and  of  immense  moment.  Here  we  do 
not  refer  to  the  undoubted  fact  that  if  there  are 
certain  fixed  stages  of  human  development,  along 
which  all  nations  progress,  they  have  moved  at 
very  unequal  rates.  Some  have  remained  on  the 
primitive  savage  level  to  this  hour ;  others  cul- 
minated rapidly  in  early  ages  and  have  disappeared, 
or  been  stationary  since ;  while  all  down  the  cen- 
turies we  have  had  blossomings  from  the  barbarian 
stage  into  temporary  or  permanent  grades  of  civili- 
sation. The  facts  are  too  various  on  the  arena  of 
human  civilisation  to  admit  of  the  wide  and  sweep- 
ing inferences  drawn  by  the  critics. 

But  we  wish  to  advance  to  an  important  point 
beyond  this.  Judging  simply  by  the  circumstances 
lying  before  us  in  the  field  of  history,  and  quite 
apart  from  any  religious  theory,  we  find  a  whole 
order  of  facts  pointing  to  the  apparent  destination 


1 66  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

of  particular  peoples  to  specific  place  and  influence 
in  certain  ages  of  the  world.  Explain  this  how 
we  may,  the  fact  is  indisputable.  The  progress 
of  the  human  race  has  not  been  by  a  certain, 
even,  continuous  progression,  simultaneous  over  the 
whole  area,  from  age  to  age.  From  the  dawn  of 
history  there  have  always  been  typical  and  re- 
presentative nations  culminating  with  remarkable 
celerity  into  certain  forms  of  civilisation,  and 
stamping  their  mould  on  surrounding  peoples. 

In  other  words — and  we  ask  the  reader  to 
observe  the  importance  of  the  assertion — among 
the  great  nations  of  antiquity  we  find,  on  the 
natural  level,  the  same  law  of  selection  and  special 
blossoming  of  gift  and  power,  and  controlling 
influence  on  after  ages,  which  mark  Israel  in  the 
Mosaic  age,  on  the  grander  spiritual  level. 
Hence,  the  course  of  Israel's  history  from  a 
creative  beginning  in  the  Mosaic  age,  so  far 
from  being  in  violent  opposition  to  what  we 
find  among  other  nations,  is  powerfully  supported 
by  outstanding — yea,  the  central  and  character- 
istic— facts  in  the  lives  of  other  nations.  And, 
if  that  be  true,  the  assumption  on  which  the  critical 
movement  rests  is  shaken  to  its  foundations. 

Let  us  turn  first  to  Egypt.  Have  we  in  this 
nation  the  regulation,  slow,  development  up  from 
savagery  ? 

The   oldest   civihsation   in  the  world  is  among 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION    167 

the  most  developed.  Brugsch  Bey  says  ^ :  "The 
scientific  students  of  our  day  who  trace  back  the 
history  of  mankind  to  the  times  when  the  races 
of  men  lived  in  the  condition  of  savages,  have 
arranged  in  order  the  three  ages  of  stone,  of 
bronze,  of  iron,  in  order  to  fill  up  by  this  regular 
series  the  void  which  exists  in  all  the  records  of 
history."  ''Up  to  this  time,  at  least,  Egypt 
throws  scorn  upon  these  assumed  periods."  At 
the  earliest  dawn  of  historic  time  we  find  a  kingdom 
thoroughly  organised  for  war  and  peace,  furnished 
with  not  only  the  rude  necessities  but  the  elegances 
and  luxuries,  the  pleasures  and  the  pomp  of  life. 
From  that  furthest -oif  age  have  come  down  the 
most  astonishing  fruits  of  the  Egyptian  genius — 
the  vast  design  and  the  astonishing  execution  of 
the  pyramids.  And  with  that  exhibition  of  un- 
matched strength  you  have  the  striking  realism  of 
those  works  of  art  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Gizeh  Museum,  near  Cairo,  and  those  most  deli- 
cate pictures  of  current  life  in  the  morning  of  the 
world  to  be  found  in  the  Tomb  of  Ti. 

Now,  here  we  have  in  the  dawn  of  Egyptian 
history,  what  may  be  truly  called  its  creative  age, 
when  all  the  characteristic  qualities  which  were 
afterwards  to  distinguish  this  nation  blossomed  out 
in  unrivalled  intensity,  and  with  a  spontaneousness 
and  grace   of  movement   utterly  wanting  in  later 

^   "The  History  of  Egypt,"  vol.  i.  p.  25. 


1 68   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

centuries.  They  never  returned  to  the  grandeur 
and  beauty  of  these  earliest  attainments.  To  those 
who  look  upon  the  pyramids,  in  photographs  and 
paintings,  they  may  seem  featureless  bulks  beside 
our  cathedrals  and  palaces.  But  when,  standing 
on  the  tawny  sand  under  the  blue  cope  of  heaven, 
we  look  round  upon  their  enormous  mass,  reducing 
to  nothingness  every  other  monumental  work  of 
man,  we  feel  how  great  in  all  the  attributes  of 
natural  energy  must  that  primitive  people  have 
been.  Adjusted  perfectly  to  the  cardinal  points, 
covering  thirteen  acres,  the  great  pyramid  rises  to 
the  perpendicular  height  of  450  feet,  and  when  per- 
fectly covered  with  mirror-faces  of  polished  granite 
must  have  shone  in  greatly  heightened  magnificence. 

Then,  whereas  the  later  art  is  stiflT  and  formal, 
laden  with  religious  symbolism,  and  marked  by 
hardly  a  trace  of  human  feeling  or  an  illumining 
touch  of  genius,  in  wood-carving,  in  paintings  of 
animals,  in  such  statues  as  the  Sheikh-el-Beled  and 
the  Kneeling  Scribe,  these  early  ages  show  works 
of  art  vividly  realistic  and  of  imperishable  interest. 

When  we  turn  to  the  religious  history  the 
reason  is  apparent.  As  M.  de  Rouge  says : 
"  More  than  five  thousand  years  since,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Nile,  the  hymn  began  to  the  unity  of 
God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  These  are 
the  primitive  notions  enchased  like  indestructible 
diamonds  in  the  midst  of  mythological "  additions 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   169 

which  obscured  the  original  worship.  Mythology 
is  not  seen  to  be  a  normal  stage  of  human  develop- 
ment, but  a  disease  of  thought,  which,  terribly 
aggravated  by  the  downward  development  of  art, 
caused  the  Power  "who  was  not  graven  on  stone," 
^'  whose  abode  was  unknown,"  to  be  practically  for- 
gotten at  the  magnificent  temples  of  later  dynasties 
in  favour  of  quite  other  and  lower  deities.^ 

Now,  if  all  this  be  true — and  there  is  no  gain- 
saying it — what  are  we  to  conclude  about  this  iron 
theory  of  human  progression,  to  which,  by  the 
most  violent  means,  the  course  of  Israel's  history 
has  been  compelled  to  be  conformed  ? 

It  is  as  thoroughly  set  at  nought  by  the  history 
of  Egypt  as  by  the  history  of  Israel.  Of  course, 
the  history  of  Egypt,  except  for  the  evident 
tradition  of  a  great  God,  is  on  the  natural  level. 
Everything  was  wrought  on  the  natural  level,  by 
energy  of  arm  and  power  of  mind  and  will.  But 
on  that  level  they  had  an  end  to  serve  in  the 
providential  order  of  the  world.  And  so  far  from 
growing  up  through  recognisable  stages  to  civilisa- 
tion, they  started  with  the  loftiest  conception  of 
God  and  the  grandest  liberty  of  self-expression, 
stiffening  into  form  and  symbol  as  the  centuries 
went  by. 

Now  if  such  was  the  course  of  things  in  Egypt 
— if  this,  one  of  the  great  empires  of  civilisation, 

"  Renoufs  Hibbert  Lectures,"  pp.  91,  252. 


lyo  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

was  trained  for  supremacy  and  leadership  along 
this  line,  starting,  so  far  as  one  can  see,  with  such 
a  magnificence  of  aim  and  energy,  what  impro- 
babihty  can  there  be,  even  in  view  of  the  general 
laws  of  human  progress,  that  Israel,  who  was 
reserved  for  a  far  grander  function,  should 
have  had,  in  the  dawn  of  her  history,  a 
creative  era,  with  still  more  striking  features, 
corresponding  to  her  more  remarkable  destiny  ? 
This  iron  necessity,  therefore,  for  conforming  to 
natural  law — or  call  it  the  providential  order  of 
the  world — which  has  been  lying  in  the  back- 
ground of  the  critics'  minds  through  all  their 
destructive  work,  is  a  delusion.  The  same 
reasoning  that  sends  down  to  a  late  age  the 
larger  conceptions  of  the  Hebrew  spirit  would  go 
to  prove  that  the  richest  outcomes  of  Egyptian 
art,  and  the  vastest  and  most  daring  architectural 
achievements,  would  come  last.  But  facts,  in  the 
latter  case,  show  the  contrary. 

Turn  now  to  another  case.  We  remember  how 
slow,  according  to  the  critical  theory,  must  have 
been  the  growth  of  the  spiritual.  David  cannot 
be  credited  with  any  song  more  developed  in  this 
direction  than  the  dirges  for  Saul  and  Abner.  Still 
polytheists,  we  are  told,  David  and  his  people  were 
far  from  the  full  monotheistic  stage.  This  is  held 
to  be  necessary  in  the  nature  of  things,  because  of 
the  average  condition  of  development  in  that  time. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION    171 

In  this  the  critics  contradict  ascertained  historic 
fact,  and  libel  human  nature.  They  never  seem 
to  take  in,  that  what  is  beyond  question  true  in 
later  eras  may  have  been  true  in  earlier,  that  in 
human  nature  there  were  the  elements  of  a  violent 
conflict — possibilities  of  rising  high  as  well  as  fall- 
ing low.  What  men  often  sunk  to,  they  without 
evidence  made  the  normal  level  at  which  they  stood. 

Of  the  real  blunder  into  which  the  critics  have 
thus  fallen  there  is  forthcoming  unmistakable  proof. 
Long  before  the  days  of  David,  in  times  preceding 
the  age  of  Moses,  a  people  known  as  the  Accadians 
lived  among  the  mountains  to  the  east  of  the 
Euphrates.  They  had  a  gloomy  and  even  terrible 
religion,  and  revolting  incantations  to  lay  the  forces 
of  evil.  Some  have  thought  they  were  Turanians, 
barbarian  outsiders  diverse  from  the  Semitic  and 
Western  peoples ;  but  others  are  of  opinion  that 
there  must  have  been  in  them  a  large  infusion  of 
Semitic  blood.  Indeed,  it  has  been  supposed  that 
when  Abraham  left  his  country  and  kindred  he 
came  out  from  this  nation. 

The  remarkable  fact  regarding  this  people  is, 
that,  at  times,  elect  souls  were  able  to  rise  above 
these  dark,  brooding  fears  to  a  vision  of  a  good 
Being,  who,  for  the  moment,  fills  the  soul  as  alone 
and  supreme.  But,  more  remarkable  than  this 
vision  of  a  great,  good,  holy,  tender  Being,  is  the 
developed  character  of  the  worshipper's  relation  to 


172  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Him.  There  breathes  through  many  a  strain  an 
almost  Christian  sense  of  sin.  There  is  a  closeness 
of  approach,  a  tenderness  of  appeal,  a  warmth  of 
confiding,  most  touching  to  behold.  Take  this 
address  to  God  : — 

"  In  heaven  who  is  great  ?      Thou  alone  art  great. 

On  earth  who  is  great  ?      Thou  only. 

When  Thy  voice  soundeth  in  heaven,  the  gods  fall  prostrate. 

When  Thy  voice  soundeth  on  earth,  the  spirits  kiss  the  dust. 

0  Thou,  Thy  words  who  can  resist  ? 
Who  can  rival  them  ? 

Among  the  gods,  Thy  brothers,  Thou  hast  no  equal. 

God  my  Creator,  may  He  stand  by  my  side  ! 

Keep  Thou  the  door  of  my  lips. 

Guard  Thou  my  hands,  O  Lord  of  Light. 

O  Lord,  who  trusteth  in  Thee  do  Thou  benefit  his  soul."  ^ 

Out  in  the  dark  of  heathenism,  falling  prostrate 
under  terrors,  these  Accadians  ever  and  anon  rose 
to  such  clear,  steady  visions  of  God.  In  these 
and  similar  words  we  have  a  "clear  and  authentic 
insight  into  the  first  manifestation  of  the  religious 
instinct  in  man."^  "This  strange  and  primitive 
religion  .  .  .  claims  with  the  Egyptian  and  the 
Chinese  the  distinction  of  being  one  of  the  oldest  on 
earth,  and  in  all  probability  was  older  than  both."^ 

If  in  those  remote  ages  of  the  world,  among  a 
people  held  down  by  a  dark  and  awful  worship  of 

1  Ancient  Tablet  of  Babylon   quoted   in   Brace's    "The   Unknown 
God." 

"  Ragozin's  "  Chaldea,"  p.  149.  3  jj^  ^Iq 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION    173 

spirits,  there  were  such  possibihties  of  ascent,  and 
clear  vision,  and  lofty  aspiration,  as  we  have  in 
these  records,  found  at  Nineveh,  what  vestige  of 
validity  can  be  alleged  in  favour  of  those  reason- 
ings which  declare  that  it  is  impossible  such  a 
psalm  as  the  fifty-first  could  have  been  composed 
by  David?  Israel  holds  a  place,  describe  it  how 
you  may,  separate  and  distinct  from  all  other 
nations.  The  late  Bishop  Westcott  says,^  "  that 
in  no  case  is  the  revelation  or  authoritative  rule 
given  in  the  ethnic  books,  represented  as  embodied 
and  wrought  out  step  by  step  in  the  life  of  a 
people."  But  in  the  Old  Testament  we  have 
alone  in  the  world,  the  history  of  a  divine  purpose 
wrought  out  in  successive  ages,  with  all  the  vision 
and  impulse  consequent  upon  such  a  divine  mani- 
festation. Of  such  a  solitary  experience  we  might 
expect  unique  outcomes ;  and  we  therefore  regard 
as  entirely  without  historical  justification  the  reason- 
ing by  which  some  (not  all)  relegate  the  Decalogue 
to  a  late  age,  and  count  it  indisputable,  despite  the 
testimony  of  Jesus,  that  the  iioth  Psalm  could  not 
have  been  written  by  the  son  of  Jesse. 

Allow  me  one  further  illustration  to  make  evident 
that  the  real  course  of  development  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth  has  not  been  that  unbroken, 
equal  progress  upward  from  savagery  which  theor- 
ists depict.     Not  only  in  the  earliest,  but  in  later 

^   "  Cambridge  Companion  to  the  Bible,"  p.  20. 


174  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

ages  we  have  extraordinary  new  beginnings  of  the 
human  spirit,  in  which  the  past  is  left  behind,  and 
a  people  goes  forward  within   new  horizons,  be- 
comes animated  by  entirely  different  conceptions  of 
life  and  endeavour,  and  reaches  the  most  perfect 
expression  of  its  genius  in  its  first  literary  blossom. 
Professor  Jebb,  in  his  "  Growth  and  Influence 
of  Classic  Greek  Poetry,"  very  vividly  describes, 
over  against  the  stereotyped  civilisations  and  fossil- 
ised faiths  of  the  East,  the  entrance  of  the  Greek 
spirit  in  Homer's  Iliad  and  Odyssey.     The  litera- 
ture of  Europe  begins  with  them,  and  in  them  at 
a  step  the  Greek  tongue  finds  perfect  imaginative 
expression.     Here   we   observe   a   type   of  excel- 
lence  suddenly   emerging,   and   in   its   beginnings 
revealing   its   regnant    qualities    and    reaching    its 
crown.     As  we  read  these  poems,  breathing  the 
joy  of  nature,   the   artist's   sense   of  beauty,    the 
quick  objective  perception,  the  singer's  mastery  of 
phrase ;   as  we  look  upon  the   Greek  sculptures, 
models  for  all  time,  and  the  consummate  grace  ot 
ornament,  for  instance,  on  the  shattered  structure 
of  the  Erechtheion,  we  become  convinced  that  here 
again,  in  the  onward  course  of  the  nations,  was  a 
distinct    endowment.     There    is    upon    all — epic, 
statue,  architecture,  tragedy,  philosophy — the  hall- 
mark of  one  characteristic  human  type,  the  mani- 
festation of  a  singular  outburst,  in  many  related 
forms,   of  human   genius.      The  blossoming  was 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   175 

brief,  and  the  world  has  been  copying  the  wonders 
of  that  creative  era  ever  since. 

Suppose  the  critics  were  to  attempt  their  cum- 
brous destructive  methods  upon  Grecian  literature 
and  art.  Assuming  a  regular  development  upward 
from  the  savage — although  they  have  here  what 
is  not  to  be  found  in  Israel,  a  lusty  growth  of 
myth  and  legend — they  would  have  to  turn  that 
literature  topsy  turvey  likewise.  And  when  they 
had  done,  they  would  not  have  been  able  to 
account  for  one  characteristic  element  of  Greek 
civilisation.  Here,  again,  we  have,  on  the  broad 
field  of  history,  providential  destination  to  a  par- 
ticular human  service,  accompanied  by  a  remark- 
able endowment,  of  a  nation  which  rose  up  in 
creative  energy  to  run  through  its  day  of  oppor- 
tunity in  the  eye  of  the  world. 

The  grievous  blunder  of  the  critics  lay  in  failing 
to  realise  that  in  connection  with  Israel  we  have — 
whatever  more — at  least  a  providential  move- 
ment of  that  kind,  as  in  Egypt,  as  in  Greece, 
owing  every  characteristic  quality  to  the  creative 
endowment  from  which  the  whole  started.  It  was 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  in  the  dark  and  cloudy 
day  of  Deism,  Scripture  history  should  have  been 
brought  down  by  every  critical  art  to  the  level  of 
the  common  and  the  unclean;  that,  later,  Well- 
hausen  and  Stade  should  reduce  the  history  of 
Israel  to  pure  naturalism.     But  it  will  never  cease 


176  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

to  be  matter  of  wonder  that  such  a  number  of 
scholarly  men,  sensitive  to  the  spiritual,  forward  to 
recognise  some  at  least  of  the  higher  forces  which 
mould  the  world,  should  have  failed  to  allow  for 
these  providential  destinations  of  particular  nations 
to  some  form  of  light  or  leading,  and  frankly  to 
recognise  that  in  this  rank  Israel  was  far  and  away 
the  first.  Everything  points  to  such  a  creative 
beginning  as  that  which  the  Pentateuch  describes, 
followed  by  a  history  under  the  spell  of  that  in- 
fluence. All  originalities  of  architecture  and  art 
and  literature,  typical  of  the  ethnic  developments, 
are  nothing  to  the  unapproached  originality  of  the 
character  of  Jehovah,  and  the  glory  of  His  revealed 
purpose. 

And  yet,  under  the  spell  of  a  passing  theory  of 
natural  evolution,  they  turn  to  the  miserable  task 
— doomed  to  failure  from  the  beginning — of  ex- 
plaining the  rise  of  unspeakably  the  most  original 
conception  of  the  ancient  world,  by  myth  and 
piecings  of  old  traditions,  and  imaginative  colour- 
ings. If  we  take  account  of  Israel's  supreme  place 
and  influence,  such  an  idea  is  utterly  inadequate,  and, 
in  view  of  what  has  taken  place  among  other  leading 
nations  on  a  lower  level,  is  also  utterly  improbable. 

2.  But  come  now  to  the  ground  taken  by  the 
Old  Testament  as  being  a  true  revelation  of  God 
and  a  preparation  for  the  Christian  revelation. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   177 

We  shall  see  that  in  this  higher  view  the  critical 
reconstruction  halts  at  all  points.  In  this  connec- 
tion we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  unbelieving 
critic,  who  expressly  labours  to  reduce  the  history 
of  Israel  to  a  purely  natural  level.  We  have  no 
controversy  with  him  since  we  have  no  common 
ground.  The  actual  outcomes  in  human  history  of 
Jewish  and  Christian  revelation  are  sufficient  to 
convince  every  open  mind  that  such  inquirers  have 
simply  left  out  of  account  the  most  characteristic 
elements  of  their  study. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  position  of  the 
great  majority  of  British  critics  and  their  sup- 
porters. Professor  Robertson  Smith  ^  says:  "The 
Bible  does  speak  to  the  heart  of  man  in  words 
that  can  only  come  from  God."  Again:  "The 
Bible  sets  forth  the  personal  converse  of  God 
with  man.  ...  He  spake  not  only  through  them 
but  to  them  and  in  them."  And  so  he  contends 
there  is  a  human  as  well  as  a  Divine  element  in 
Scripture.  But  he  goes  on  to  say  :  ^  "  All  that 
earthly  study  and  research  can  do  for  the  reader 
of  Scripture  is  to  put  him  in  the  position  of  the 
man  to  whose  heart  God  first  spoke.  It  is  only 
the  Spirit  of  God  who  can  make  the  Word  a 
living  word  to  our  hearts,  as  it  was  a  living  word 
to  him  who  first  received  it."  In  a  quotation 
already   made,   Principal    Fairbairn    contends    that 

1  old  Testament,  p.  28.  '^  Ibid.  p.  20. 

M 


178  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

"criticism  has  given  us  back  the  idea  of  God,  who 
lives  in  history  through  His  people,  and  a  people 
who  live  for  Him  through  His  Word." 

We  have  to  do  then,  admittedly,  with  a  revela- 
tion, and  an  integral  part  of  the  revelation  of 
God.  But  if  that  be  so,  why  do  not  these  critics 
accept  the  self-witness  of  revelation,  and  receive 
the  Old  Testament  supported  by  the  New  as  it 
stands  ? 

Professor  G.  A.  Smith  ^  alleges  the  moral  difE- 
culties  of  Scripture  as  a  reason.  ''The  theory  of 
the  equal  and  lasting  divinity  of  the  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures has  been  fertile  in  casuistry,  bigotry,  and 
cruel  oppression  of  every  kind."  "The  refusal  to 
see  any  development  either  from  the  ethnic  reli- 
gions to  the  religion  of  Israel,  or  any  development 
within  the  religion  of  Israel  itself  .  .  .  has  had  a 
disastrous  influence  upon  the  religious  thought  and 
action  of  our  time."  ^ 

And  Bishop  Gore,  in  his  famous  contribution  to 
"Lux  Mundi,"3  advocating  an  imperfect  tentative 
revelation  (if  it  can  be  called  such)  rising  slowly 
from  the  pagan  level  to  something  better,  says: 
"It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  New  Testament  as 
the  religion  of  the  incarnation  to  be  final  and 
catholic.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  of  the  essence 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  imperfect,  because  it 

1  "Modern  Criticism,"  pp.  23-28. 
-  "  Modern  Criticism,"  pp.  25,  26.  s  p_  ^29. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   179 

represents  a  gradual  process  of  education  by  which 
man  was  lifted  out  of  depths  of  sin  and  ignorance." 
Later  on,  in  the  same  essay,  having  allowed  for 
idealising  elements,  as  also  primitive  myths,  he 
guards  us  from  perilous  inferences  in  these  words : 
"  The  reason  of  course  is  obvious  enough,  why 
what  can  be  admitted  in  the  Old  Testament,  could 
not  without  results  disastrous  to  the  Christian 
creed  be  admitted  in  the  New." 

Putting  aside,  then,  the  view  which  the  Pen- 
tateuch gives  of  the  way  in  which  God  discovered 
Himself  to  Israel,  these  believing  critics  have 
formed  another  idea  of  how  God  may  have  come 
into  the  life  of  this  people.  Without  apparently 
any  sense  of  presumption,  as  if  they  were  dealing 
with  something  well  within  their  powers,  they 
have  taken  God  into  their  own  hands,  and  have 
imagined  a  slow  development  up  from  the  ethnic 
level.  At  every  stage  they  have  judged  as  to 
what  might  reasonably  be  considered  possible  to 
God  the  Revealer  and  man  the  subject  of  revela- 
tion. Allowance  is  made  for  large  infusions  of 
mythical  and  legendary  elements,  under  cover  of 
which  the  miraculous  may  be  eliminated,  and 
those  darker  and  cruder  elements  need  trouble  us 
no  more.  What  we  have  believed  to  be  a  divine 
Revelation,  with  a  history  controlled  and  led  on  by 
Him  with  whom  Israel  had  entered  into  relation, 
turns  out  to  be  the  natural   history  of  the  slow 


i8o  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

growth  of  the  moral  idea  in  Israel.  The  higher 
conception  of  the  divine  choice  and  world-destiny 
of  Israel,  was  an  after-reflection,  from  the  great 
days  of  the  prophets,  when  they  stood  so  high  in 
moral  respects  above  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

As  we  have  hinted,  this  was  a  presumptuous 
and  even  perilous  experiment.  We  have  seen,  in 
referring  to  the  Accadians,  how  far  out  the  critics 
were  in  their  judgments  of  what  was  possible  to 
men  in  early  times. 

But  how  can  we  judge  as  to  what  may  be  pos- 
sible to  God?  If  He  has  indeed  spoken,  let  us 
bow.  Indeed,  in  after  ages  the  wonder  of  wonders 
regarding  this  whole  movement  will  be  that  so 
many  Christian  men  were  implicated  in  such  a 
speculation.  It  is  against  the  express  testimony 
of  Scripture.  It  defiantly  contradicts  the  view  of 
the  Old  Testament  taken  by  the  New.  It  has  no 
analogy  in  any  other  field  of  God's  working.  It 
is  full  of  internal  incongruities  and — perhaps  the 
severest  charge  which  may  be  made — it  alters  the 
very  idea  and  ground  of  revelation  as  characteristic 
of  both  Testaments. 

After  what  we  have  said  about  the  self-witness 
of  revelation,  and  the  testimony  of  Christ  to  the 
Old  Testament,  in  the  first  and  third  chapters  re- 
spectively, we  are  under  no  necessity  of  adducing 
further  proof  as  to  the  first  two  points — except, 
mayhap,  to  say  that  the  testimony  of  the  Master 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   i8i 

is  supported  throughout  the  New  Testament, 
especially  by  Paul.  A  man  of  surpassing  genius, 
trained  amid  the  dry-as-dust  traditions  of  the  Rab- 
binical schools,  knowing  the  latter  as  few  have  done, 
he  was  carried  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  in  the 
light  of  fulfilment,  into  an  understanding  of  the 
Bible's  scope,  and  every  stage  of  God's  advancing 
purposes.  And  without  a  moment's  questioning 
he  goes  back  to  the  covenant  of  God  with 
Abraham,  and  the  revelation  to  Moses,  as  the 
pivots  of  the  Old  Testament.  Conscious  purpose  on 
the  part  of  God,  made  known  in  the  beginning,  ful- 
filled in  Christ,  animates  Scripture  from  end  to  end. 

In  that  character  Scripture  has  achieved  those 
wonderful  victories  which  have  created  Christen- 
dom. It  does  indeed  seem  strange  to  be  told  now 
that,  as  regards  the  Old  Testament,  these  have 
been  achieved  under  a  mistake. 

But,  further,  we  have  no  real  analogy  in  any 
other  field  of  God's  working.  Notice,  we  have  here 
a  singular  effect  not  to  be  found  in  all  the  other 
nations  of  antiquity — a  positive,  historical  revela- 
tion, entering  into  the  life  of  a  nation,  and  working 
upward  from  age  to  age.  To  bring  this  revelation 
into  harmony  with  heathen  rehgions,  to  imagine  a 
steady  progression  from  the  heathen  up  to  the 
Jewish  level,  is  to  fatally  undervalue  the  funda- 
mental diflference  between  Jewish  and  heathen 
conceptions.  . 


1 82  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

We  have  already  traced  the  historical  connection 
between  the  critical  theory  and  material  evolution. 
And  this  vital  mistake  is  analogous  to  what  took 
place  at  the  borders  of  dead  matter  and  life. 
Thorough-paced  partisans  would  have  it  that  life 
was  evolved  from  dead  matter.  Processes  like 
crystallisation,  discovering  the  resources  of  the 
material,  were  pointed  to  as  justification  of  the 
belief.  Clever  definitions  were  drawn  up  that 
left  out  the  characteristic  elements  which  had  to 
be  explained.  At  last,  however,  the  unbridged 
and  unbridgable  gulf  between  the  living  and  not- 
living  has  been  acknowledged.  Life  is  an  endow- 
ment, and  it  is  "  the  same  from  the  lowest  animal 
inhabiting  a  stagnant  pool  up  to  the  glorious 
mechanism  of  the  human  form." 

No  one  will  for  a  moment  deny  that  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus,  the  evangelical  scheme  of  Paul,  the 
revelation  of  Calvary,  stand  at  an  infinite  remove 
from  all  the  imaginations  of  heathenism.  Every 
one  who  has  any  title  to  the  name  Christian 
will  admit  that  they  are  revelations  from  God. 
But  we  assert  that  in  essence  the  characteristic 
quality  in  those  fully  developed  revelations,  which 
marks  them  as  from  God,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
promises  of  God  to  Abraham  and  in  the  calling  of 
Moses.  Like  the  barrier  between  the  living  and 
the  not-living,  yea,  broader  far,  is  the  barrier 
between  these  counsels  of  eternity  and  the  yearn- 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   183 

ings  and  vaticinations  of  the  heathen  human  heart. 
As  life  has  its  own  laws  different  from  those  of 
the  not-living,  the  analogies  of  heathen  religions 
do  not  obtain  here.  We  are  driven  forward  to 
the  only  real  analogy  in  the  Christian  religion, 
and  are  led  to  ask  this  question :  How  did  God 
proceed  in  revealing  Himself  through  Christ? 
Because,  whatever  the  differences  between  tem- 
porary and  final,  early  and  late,  the  provisional  and 
the  complete,  there  must  be  some  fundamental 
correspondence  in  His  methods. 

But  further,  this  critical  reconstruction  is  full  of 
internal  incongruities.  The  anxiety  of  the  critics 
has  been  to  bring  the  history  into  line  with  a 
normal  human  development.  They  have  not  in 
anything  like  the  same  degree  aimed  at  spiritual 
probability  or  congruity.  The  recklessness  with 
which  they  have  adopted  theories  of  literary  per- 
sonation and  imaginative  additions,  and  editings 
and  re-editings  without  end,  is  sufficient  to  show 
how  little  they  were  deterred  by  any  felt  presence 
of  God  in  the  narrative.  From  this  spiritual  side, 
to  the  inquirer  asking  how  the  Old  Testament 
exerted  the  influence  of  a  revelation  and  prepared 
for  the  complete  revelation  in  Christ,  there  are  in 
the  new  theory,  and  the  re-casting  of  Scripture  in 
harmony  with  it,  difficulties  rising  even  to  moral 
and  spiritual  impossibilities. 

We  can  only  choose  two  or  three  of  these  as 


1 84  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

samples.  All  are  agreed  that  Moses  was  the  true 
founder  of  Israel.  He  had  attained  that  conception 
of  Jehovah  which  grew  into  the  purer  faith  of  later 
times.  But  how,  when  all  other  extant  religions 
were  becoming  fossilised  and  stereotyped,  did  he 
leap  up  into  living  converse  with  the  spiritual  ^ 
That  is  the  wonder,  the  original  fact  in  Israel, 
which  the  critics  pass  over  unexplained. 

But  again,  and  in  an  opposite  direction,  how  can 
they  account  for  Jehovah  living  in  Moses  and  his 
people  without  imposing  His  will  in  some  form, 
or  calling  them  into  some  distinctive  walk?  Yet, 
according  to  their  theory.  He  did  not.  The  only 
laws  which  Moses  gave  were  what  the  critics 
regard  as  the  common  law  decisions  summarised 
in  Exod.  xx.-xxiii.  Even  when  they  entered  the 
promised  land  their  sacrifices  were  nature  festivals, 
and  they  worshipped  at  the  common  high  places 
without  any  sense  of  rebuke.  Jahveh  was  their 
deity,  as  Chemosh  was  the  god  of  the  Moabites. 
Yea,  we  are  told  that,  down  to  the  dawn  of 
written  prophecy,  the  religion  of  Israel  was  poly- 
theism, with  an  opening  toward  monotheism ! 

Now  that  is  an  utterly  incongruous  picture, 
drawn  by  men  who  have  never  seriously  tried  to 
adjust  their  scheme  of  development  to  spiritual 
necessities.  If  Israel  abode  so  long  on  that  natural 
level,  they  were  heathens  outright.  If  one  spark 
of  the  true  Jehovah  burned  in  Moses  and  Israel, 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   185 

such  quiescence  was  impossible.  Think  of  Jehovah 
and  idols  dwelling  calmly  generation  by  generation  in 
Jewish  hearts  !  Think  of  Israel,  unrebuked,  offer- 
ing their  sacrifices  to  Jehovah  on  high  places  where 
offerings  reeked  to  heathen  gods !  The  whole  is 
a  gratuitous  imagination,  yea,  an  utter  desecration 
of  the  central  age  of  Hebrew  history.  In  deference 
to  mere  theory,  the  critics  have  conjured  up  scenes 
and  experiences  which  are  entirely  out  of  touch 
with  the  reigning  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament. 

We  are  quite  sure  that  when  Jehovah  came  into 
Israel  He  was  a  separating  force — not  merely  re- 
vealing His  glory,  but  binding  the  Jews  to  Himself. 
The  ends  of  His  self-discovery  would  demand  their 
being  walled  off  from  surrounding  peoples,  that 
His  influence  might  not  be  dissipated  and  lost. 
Grant  that,  and  we  can  explain  all  that  we  find  in 
these  records.  Even  the  most  terrible  passages 
do  not  make  sceptics  of  us.  We  can  quite  under- 
stand how,  despite  divine  love,  men  may  disobey 
God,  and,  disobeying,  go  out  in  awful  rebellion. 
We  realise  that,  since  He  cannot  give  them  up, 
God  must  come  down  to  where  men  are,  and, 
working  on  their  darkened  minds,  use  them  on 
their  level,  so  far  as  they  can  be  used.  Ehud's 
was  not  a  refined  achievement,  but  in  an  age  of 
lawlessness  it  made  for  righteousness  in  the  main. 
And  so  for  those  whom  He  called  to  service, 
Jehovah  had  often  terrible  work. 


1 86  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

The  true  justification  of  such  circumstances  lies 
in  the  time,  and  the  end.  Were  they  the  best 
practically,  reaching  beyond  themselves  and  serving 
the  good  of  the  world  ?  Because  we  believe  that 
these  are  associated  with,  and  an  integral  part  of, 
the  inspired  revelation  of  God's  purpose  to  man,  we 
are  not  to  make  them  the  rule  of  our  practice  to- 
day. The  circumstances,  whether  in  God's  people 
or  in  their  enemies,  do  not  exist  to-day.  The 
revelation  of  God  is  a  historic  progressive  revela- 
tion. We  have  been  taught  by  love  the  duty  of 
love.  Renewed  and  living  in  the  Spirit,  we  have 
a  power  for  that  higher  life.  But,  to  change  some- 
what the  lines  of  Longfellow  : — 

"  Those  heights  by  Christians  reached  and  kept, 
Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight." 

Step  by  step,  under  the  guidance  and  help  ot 
God,  men  were  lifted  from  the  primitive  ground  of 
selfishness  toward  this  spirit.  The  first  struggles 
of  the  dawning  sense  of  right  with  craven  fear  and 
passion  were  very  tentative,  and  not  unstained  by 
defect ;  but  they  marked  the  dawn  of  God  within 
a  rude  life.  We  have  but  little  sympathy  with 
the  modern  exquisites  who  scorned  the  ladder  by 
which  through  the  ages  men  have  risen  to  where 
they  now  stand,  and  who  cannot  discern  the  ethical 
motive,  and  the  continued  worth  for  man,  of  such 
fierce  loyalties  and  pitiless  allegiances  to  right. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   187 

All  that  presents  no  insuperable  stumbling-block 
to  us.  But  what  awakens  in  us  feelings  of  moral 
pain  which  we  cannot  describe,  is  to  see  men  after 
their  own  fancy  draw  a  portrait  of  a  crude,  colour- 
less, unethical,  or  faintly  ethical  Jehovah,  who  did 
not  invest  His  people  with  a  holy  separating  medium, 
but  left  them  to  live  on  the  natural  level,  pretty 
much  as  they  listed.  What  fills  one  with  trembling 
is  to  see  that  lifeless  simulacrum  set  up  in  place 
of  the  Great  and  Terrible  One  of  Sinai,  whom 
no  one  could  see  and  live. 

How  men  are  befooled  by  their  own  imagina- 
tions !  This  theory  tacitly  assumes  that  Jehovah 
developed.  That  shows  their  light  hold  of  spiritual 
fact.  But  what  developed  was  the  capacity  of 
Israel  to  receive  the  vision  of  God.  Jehovah 
remains  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever. 
The  God  and  Father  of  Christ  was  He  who,  under 
veils  of  symbol  and  material  glory,  spoke  to  Moses. 
How,  then,  for  a  moment  could  He  be  held  to  be 
such  as  the  Higher  Criticism  imagines  ^  From  the 
spiritual  side,  the  ineptitude  of  the  whole  con- 
ception, the  pitiful  way  in  which  it  collapses  so 
soon  as  examined,  prevents  us  from  saying  what 
we  feel  about  this  Dasdalus-like  venture  into  regions 
beyond  human  reach. 

Following  downwards  the  history,  we  find 
after  this  long  era, — barely  distinguishable  from 
heathenism, — the  prophetic  age.     In  the  traditional 


i88  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

view,  there  had  been  the  leavening  influence  of 
the  Mosaic  revelation,  despite  frequent  backsliding, 
on  the  national  life.  Typical  characters  had  been 
growing  up  in  Israel,  marked  by  broad  wisdom 
and  elevated  spirit.  The  joy  of  spiritual  worship 
had  been  bursting  forth  in  sanctuary  songs. 
Shrewd  maxims  or  proverbs,  instinct  with  an 
ethical  life,  passed  from  lip  to  lip.  Burning 
utterances  of  great  prophets  unwritten,  but  living 
through  their  verve  and  beauty,  became  a  national 
possession.  The  nation  had  been  growing  in 
appreciation  of  literary  form,  and  in  the  delight  of 
eloquent  self-expression.  And  on  that  under- 
standing, with  that  preparation,  prophecy,  though 
remarkable,  was  not  an  inexplicable  phenomenon. 

But  on  the  critics'  supposition,  frankly,  it  is 
inexplicable.  Indeed,  we  should  not  strain  the 
facts  if  we  said  —  impossible  !  We  remember 
what  we  said  of  the  sudden  outburst  of  the  Greek 
genius  into  perfect  form  in  the  Iliad.  We  count 
it  a  hazardous  experiment  arbitrarily  to  determine 
what  is  possible  or  impossible  to  the  genius  of  a 
people  rising  from  the  trammels  of  the  past.  If 
the  prophetic  books  were  simply  new  buds  of 
genius  from  the  rude  stock  of  Israel,  we  should 
just  have  to  accept  them,  and  put  another  wonder 
to  the  account  of  the  human  spirit. 

But  the  more  we  study  them  we  see  that  they 
mark  a  new  departure,  because  they  are  a  return 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   189 

to  an  old  ideal.  Their  roots  are  in  the 
past.  They  pre-suppose  a  unique  call  and 
choice  of  God — an  exceptional  culture  as  of  the 
vine,  a  union  with  God  so  sacred  and  intimate 
as  that  of  marriage,  marking  Israel  in  contra- 
distinction to  other  nations.  The  Jews  were  on 
a  pedestal  apart  from  all  other  peoples,  and  their 
present  condition  was  not  their  misfortune,  but 
their  backsliding  and  whoredom. 

But  there  is  another  note  in  the  prophets, 
without  which  we  cannot  enter  into  the  very- 
genius  of  prophecy.  All  this  was  done  for  Israel, 
not  on  account  of  any  goodness  in  Israel,  but 
because  God  had  a  purpose  to  serve  for  the  world. 

Here,  then,  were  the  very  gist  and  pivot  of 
prophecy.  The  prophets  were  not  mere  pub- 
licists. They  did  not  merely  as  ethical  teachers 
deduce  from  their  own  perception  of  the  immensely 
superior  moral  and  spiritual  ideals  of  Israel,  their 
own  private  conviction  of  the  necessary  triumph  of 
Israel  over  heathen  beliefs.  They  did  not  merely 
get  spiritual  help  to  draw  wider  and  surer  con- 
clusions from  purely  ethical  grounds.  No  wonder, 
if  such  be  the  prevailing  views,  that  candid  thinkers 
are  disposed  to  limit  the  range  of  prophecy  in  every 
way  until  these  books  are  as  much  broken  up  by  the 
critics  as  the  five  books  of  Moses  themselves. 

Prophecy  stood  on  the  covenant  of  God  with 
His   ancient   people.      Sovereignly   He  had  called 


190  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

them  into  their  solitary  place  of  privilege  for  a 
great  purpose,  affecting  not  only  Israel  but  the 
entire  future  of  the  race.  Granted,  then,  that 
Israel  may  have  to  undergo  punishment,  is  the 
purpose  of  God  to  fail?  Would  He  not  be  con- 
sistent with  Himself,  and  carry  out  in  some  form 
His  great  designs  ?  And  so  the  central  figure  of 
prophecy  is  not  Israel  or  Israel's  consciousness  of  a 
unique  destiny,  but  God,  coming  in  to  restore  the 
tabernacle  of  David,  to  betroth  Himself  anew  to 
corrupt  Israel ;  by  the  Virgin's  Son,  the  Wonder- 
ful, the  Counsellor,  the  Servant  of  Jehovah, 
accomplishing  His  great  design,  setting  up  a 
covenant  of  mercy  and  life,  so  that  redemption 
may  be  in  His  grace  and  power. 

Now,  if  that  be  so,  prophecy  must  have  had 
just  such  a  creative  past  as  the  Pentateuch 
describes,  for  otherwise  the  central  burden  and 
movement  of  the  prophecies  are  taken  away. 
And  prophecy  is  —  not  a  mere  blossoming  of 
Israel's  ethical  genius,  but  something  far  loftier — 
a  movement  of  God's  Spirit  on  select  moral  leaders 
of  the  race,  by  whom,  standing  as  they  did  on 
God's  past  covenant  of  promise  and  His  present 
judgments.  He  was  able  to  flash  for  all  time  the 
imperishable  principles  of  His  government,  and  to 
hold  forth,  in  the  nearer,  or  further,  or  most 
distant  future,  the  ultimate  triumph  of  His  promise, 
spoken  in  far  past  time. 


THE  CRITICAL  RECONSTRUCTION   191 

Now,  if  that  be  the  true  view  and  compass 
of  prophecy,  how  could  it  be  preceded  by  an 
era  of  virtual  naturalism  ?  And  more,  how  could 
it  be  followed,  as  in  the  critical  theory  it  is 
followed,  by  such  a  combination  of  old  documents 
— J  E,  worked  up  with  the  Priest's  Code  and 
Deuteronomy  —  into  a  literary  whole?  Surely 
that  would  be  a  paltry  result  of  the  unrivalled 
moral  intensity  of  the  prophets — the  deliberate 
attempt  to  put  another  construction  on  their 
records  than  that  which  they  really  bore,  turning 
the  natural  into  the  supernatural,  a  normal 
moral  growth  into  a  creative  revelation  originat- 
ing a  covenant  history !  As  prophecy  could  never 
have  taken  origin  from  the  one,  it  could  not 
have  produced  the  spurious  growth  of  the  other. 
With  these  burning  prophecies  discovering  the 
counsel  of  the  Eternal,  how  could  a  thing  ot 
shreds  and  patches  like  the  Pentateuch,  according 
to  the  critical  view,  be  at  once  accepted  and  held 
by  the  Jews  as  unspeakably  the  most  sacred  of 
their  sacred  books  ?  The  more  one  enters  into 
the  innate  character  of  the  records,  the  more  do 
the  inadequacy  and  improbability  of  the  critical 
view  appear. 

Well  may  we  pray  with  the  Psalmist  "  Let  my 
heart  be  sound  in  Thy  statutes  that  I  be  not 
ashamed."  This  is  what  comes  of  the  attempt  to 
shape  God's  revelation.     The  critics  want  to  make 


192  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

religion  the  crown  of  the  natural,  but  with  God  it 
is  the  entrance  of  the  supernatural.  They  want 
to  portray  a  slow  emergence  of  an  immanent  God, 
man  shaping  Him  to  his  own  thought  in  ever- 
growing consciousness,  his  own  mind  being,  in  a 
sense,  the  creator  or  producer  of  the  ever-expand- 
ing idea.  But  in  the  counsel  of  God,  revelation 
stands  on  a  totally  different  plane.  It  is  the 
supernatural  discovery  of  God  to  beings  whom  He 
has  made  capable  of  knowing  Him,  but  who  are 
estranged.  In  this  case  the  whole  movement 
must  come  from  His  side  —  His  the  covenant 
purpose,  the  way  of  approach,  the  provision  for 
all  need :  theirs  submission,  and  through  sub- 
mission, growth  up  in  the  knowledge  and  love 
of  God.  Thus  it  is  in  the  New  Testament,  thus 
and  no  other  in  the  Old.  Our  friends  need  to 
travel  much  further  than  they  dream  ere  they 
can  succeed.  Not  only  must  they  win  the  verdict 
of  men :  they  must  change  the  gracious  covenant 
purpose  of  the  Most  High. 


VI 


THE   RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION  AT  THE 
HANDS  OF  CRITICISM 

Psalm  xii.  6  :  "  The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure  words  :  as  silver  tried 
in  a  furnace  of  earth,  purified  seven  times." 

We  are  now  drawing  our  inquiry  to  a  practical 
and  positive  conclusion.  At  the  outset  we  raised 
the  fundamental  issue  between  the  self-witness  of 
revelation  and  the  critical  view.  In  the  former  we 
have  an  authoritative  revelation  coming  from  God 
to  man,  the  creative  foundation  of  religious  fellow- 
ship, and  a  covenant  history.  In  the  latter— if 
there  be  any  acknowledgment  of  God  at  all — there 
is  a  slow,  tentative  uprise  and  immanence  of  God 
as  an  ethical  force  within  human  wills — a  history 
full  of  myth,  legend,  and  conscious  or  half-conscious 
fabrication,  but  reaching  certain  lofty  moral  ideals 
at  last. 

Having  thus  stated  the  searching  issues,  by  way 
of  obviating  the  necessity  for  this  theory,  we 
pointed  out  the  unbroken  and  growing  strength  of 
the  traditional  view.  Coming  to  the  critical  hypo- 
thesis, we  brought  it  to  a  scientific  test,  and  found 
that  at  no  point  did  it  comply  with  the  conditions 


194  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

which  logicians  have  laid  down  as  necessary  to  a 
scientific  proof.  In  the  following  chapter  we  dealt 
with  the  critical  analysis  of  Scripture,  which  has 
been  looked  upon  as  a  chief  foundation  of  the 
theory ;  and  we  found  that  it  was  highly  pro- 
blematical, and  depended  in  part  on  the  theory 
which  it  was  brought  in  to  establish.  Then  leaving 
argument  in  detail  and  taking  the  theory  as  a  whole, 
we  showed  that  its  reconstruction  of  Scripture  was 
inadequate  and  improbable. 

And  so  we  are  now  face  to  face  with  a  double 
question:  (i)  How  has  so  much  of  the  talent  and 
learning  of  this  generation  drifted  into  a  blind 
alley,  from  which  there  is  no  safe  issue  but  return  ^ 
In  other  words,  what  errors  of  method  have  there 
been,  what  oversights  in  investigation,  what  mis- 
takes in  inference  and  argument  from  a  defective 
induction  of  facts  ?  And  (2)  that  being  ascertained, 
what  considerations  are  necessary  to  be  kept  in  view 
for  the  time  to  come  ?  What  rules  should  guide 
a  sound  criticism  of  Holy  Scripture  ?  These  two 
fundamental  questions  will  embrace  all  the  points 
of  the  present  chapter. 


I 


In  taking  up  the  former  of  these  two  questions 
it  will  be  wise  to  relate  this  particular  critical 
movement  to  the  great  curve  of  tendency  reaching 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     195 

downward   from  the  Reformation,  of  which  it  is 
the  negative  conclusion. 

We  have  reached  now  the  reductio  ad  ahsurdum 
of  a  course  which  has  been  pursued  for  centuries. 
We  cannot  get  any  farther  along  this  hne.  Re- 
tracing our  steps,  and  realising  afresh  the  inex- 
tinguishable and  solitary  Divine  element  in 
Scripture,  we  shall  have  to  set  out,  and  with 
much  greater  care,  and  minds  free  from  naturalistic 
bias,  restate  the  relation  of  the  human  element  in 
Scripture  to  the  Divine,  so  as  to  leave  the  true 
revelation  of  God  undimmed  and  unabridged. 
Nothing  happens  by  chance.  All  things  serve  a 
Divine  end.  Through  this  very  controversy,  and 
taught  by  its  errors  and  excesses,  we  shall  yet 
possess  a  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture,  more  exactly 
and  completely  true,  than  the  Church  has  ever 
possessed. 

It  will  be  necessary  then  to  take  a  brief  and 
fragmentary  historical  survey  of  the  course  of 
thought  in  relation  to  Holy  Scripture  within  the 
period  specified.  Of  vast  importance  for  our 
subject  will  be  found  a  clear  and  discriminating 
view  of  the  Reformation  standpoint.  In  that  great 
spiritual  upheaval  the  Reformers,  though  aroused 
to  an  intense  interest  in  the  Word  of  God,  had  no 
leisure  for  exact  literary  and  historical  inquiry. 
Wakened  from  the  dead,  lifted  into  new  life, 
fertilised    in    every    organ,    and    guided    to   new 


196  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

departures  along  every  avenue  of  the  soul,  they 
conceived  of  the  book  from  their  experience  of  its 
unapproached  spirit  and  results.  They  struck  on 
the  central  and  characteristic  quality  of  Scripture, 
its  self-evident  Divine  origin,  and  left  the  human 
aspect  and  relations  largely  out  of  view.  In  this 
they  laid  hold  of  by  far  the  most  important  truth 
— a  truth  from  which,  amid  all  changes  and  convul- 
sions, the  living  Church  has  not  declined. 

We  must  go  very  much  farther,  however, 
if  we  are  to  enter  into  the  true  Reformation 
conviction.  To  understand  how  they  could  make 
Scripture  the  authoritative  rule  of  faith  to  which 
the  private  judgment  must  bow,  we  have  to  under- 
stand how  the  conviction  came  to  them — the 
origin,  the  force,  the  scope  of  the  testimony  that 
Scripture  was  of  God.  That  was  no  passing 
phase  of  dogmatism,  and  did  not  arise  from  the 
exigencies  of  their  position,  but  sprang  from  what 
was  most  central  and  imperishable  in  their  im- 
mediate fellowship  with  God.  Perhaps  the  most 
deeply  experienced  of  us,  in  this  later  day,  may 
have  something  to  learn  from  these  masters  in 
Israel,  as  they  speak  of  the  testimonium  Spiritus 
Sancti  (the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit)  to  the 
living  Word  of  God. 

Take  this  passage  from  Calvin's  '^  Institutes  "  :  ^ 
"  Let  it  therefore  be  held  as  fixed,  that  those  who 

1  Bk.  i.,  c.  vii. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     197 

are  inwardly  taught  by  the  Holy  Spirit  acquiesce 
implicitly  in  Scripture,  that  Scripture,  carrying  its 
own  evidence  along  with  it,  deigns  not  to  submit 
to  proofs  and  arguments,  but  owes  the  full  con- 
viction with  which  we  ought  to  receive  it  to  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit.  Enlightened  by  Him  we 
no  longer  believe,  either  on  our  own  judgment  or 
that  of  others,  that  the  Scriptures  are  from  God ; 
but  in  a  way  superior  to  human  judgment  feel  per- 
fectly assured — as  much  so  as  if  we  beheld  the 
divine  image  visibly  impressed  on  it — that  it  came 
to  us  by  the  instrumentality  of  men  from  the  very 
mouth  of  God.  We  ask  not  for  proofs  or  pro- 
babilities on  which  to  rest  our  judgment,  but  we 
subject  our  intellect  and  judgment  to  it  as  too 
transcendent  for  us  to  estimate.  This,  however, 
we  do,  .  .  .  because  we  have  a  thorough  con- 
viction that  in  holding  it  we  hold  unassailable 
truth,  not  like  miserable  men  whose  minds  are 
enslaved  by  superstition,  but  because  we  feel  a 
divine  energy  living  and  breathing  in  it — an  energy 
by  which  we  are  drawn  and  animated  to  obey  it, 
willingly  indeed  and  knowingly,  but  more  vividly 
and  effectually  than  could  be  done  by  human  will 
and  knowledge." 

Never,  perhaps,  in  human  language  has  been 
written  out  more  fully  and  discriminatingly,  what 
every  true  believer  has  felt,  and  been  convinced 
of,  and  acted  upon,  in  relation  to  Holy  Scripture. 


198  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

We  receive  the  Bible  on  the  evidence  of  our 
own  spiritual  sense,  and  with  such  a  fulness  of 
illumination  by  the  Spirit  that  we  accept  it  as 
demonstrably  from  God.  This  is  no  mystic 
dream,  for  we  are  renewed  within  through  the 
reception  of  the  truth,  and  since  we  have  thus 
experienced  a  saving  change  which  brings  us  into 
fellowship  with  God,  this  book  is  henceforth  to  us 
the  voice  of  God.  As  Dorner^  says:  "The 
believing  man  is  the  organ  which  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures create  for  themselves  in  order  to  expound 
themselves  through  the  same." 

Substantially,  and  from  the  spiritual  standpoint, 
that  was  and  is  the  truth.  All  who  deny,  or  do 
not  sufficiently  allow  for  this  unique  fact,  simply 
dash  themselves  against  a  rock  of  spiritual  con- 
viction and  experience,  which  they  cannot  injure 
since  it  is  rooted  in  the  unseen,  and  which  will 
break  into  harmless  spray  the  billows  of  their 
arguments. 

After  the  Reformation,  however,  this  view  was 
pushed  to  an  extreme,  even  to  the  entire  ignoring 
of  the  other  aspects  of  Revelation — that  it  came 
through  human  agents,  at  specific  times,  in  a  certain 
gradation  or  progress  of  truth,  suited  to  the  imme- 
diate circumstances  and  the  expanding  faculties  of 
man.  But  in  the  subsidence  of  the  spiritual  fervour 
and  vision  of  the  early  reforming  days,  the  cool, 

^  "  Protestant  Theology,"  vol.  i.  p.  242. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     199 

critical  mood  which  took  account  of  these  rose  into 
the  ascendant.  Now  let  it  be  said  frankly  that 
these  difficulties  were  inevitable ;  this  side  had  to 
be  taken  account  of.  God  could  only  be  served 
by  the  full  truth,  on  the  Divine  side  and  on  the 
human.  Authority  could  not  be  brought  in  to 
silence  inconvenient  questionings.  And  when  we 
are  dealing  with  matters  of  fact,  and  date,  and 
authorship,  nothing  will  suffice  but  genuine  re- 
search and  the  sifted  truth. 

Thus  far  we  go  the  whole  length  with  those 
who  stand  for  independent  critical  research.  If 
we  have  got  a  document  whose  age  and  authorship 
it  is  our  duty  to  discover,  we  must  attend  solely  to 
the  facts,  external  and  internal,  which  may  help 
to  a  solution.  Let  the  facts  be  got  at,  and  bias 
or  authority  set  aside. 

But  still,  critics  are  only  to  be  listened  to  in 
so  far  as  fairly  and  adequately  they  interpret 
facts.  There  is  nothing  in  them,  or  about  them, 
which  qualifies  them  to  lay  down,  before  they 
begin,  what  sort  of  facts  they  are  going  to  find. 
Yet  under  the  specious  appearance  of  impartiality 
this  is  what  they  have  done. 

(i)  To  show  this,  let  us  take  an  instance  from 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  another  from  our  own 
time. 

Grotius,  the  great  Dutch  jurist  and  theologian, 
went  upon  this  principle,   that   the  Bible   should 


loo  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

be  interpreted  on  the  same  rules  of  criticism  which 
men  use  in  the  study  of  all  other  ancient  writings. 
To  this  the  redoubtable  Warburton  rejoined : 
"Nothing  could  be  more  reasonable  than  his 
principle ;  but  unluckily  he  deceived  himself  in 
the  application  of  it.  .  .  .  He  went  on  this 
reasonable  ground,  that  the  prophecies  should  be 
interpreted  like  all  other  ancient  writings ;  and 
on  examining  their  authority  he  found  them  to 
be  truly  divine.  When  he  had  gone  thus  far, 
he  then  preposterously  went  back  again,  and 
commented  as  if  they  were  confessed  to  be  merely 
human."  ^ 

This  shrewd  criticism  rings  on  the  centre.  By 
all  means  let  students  be  left  free  to  deal  with 
each  writing  according  to  the  evidence  external 
and  internal,  taking  everytliing  into  account  which 
may  fairly  determine  their  judgment.  But  when 
they  come  upon  a  collection  of  writings  mani- 
festly unique,  animated  by  a  spirit  quite  excep- 
tional, moving  on  a  method  and  plane  of  its  own 
— does  not  this  rule  require  that  they  take  this 
book  also,  and  deal  with  it  according  to  the  exist- 
ing evidence  ?  If  not,  they  are  guilty  of  the  trans- 
gression of  their  own  rule. 

The  only  legitimate  meaning  of  the  canon 
"  that  the  Bible  should  be  interpreted  like  all 
other  ancient  writings  "  is,  that  it  should  be  sub- 

1  See  for  quotations,  Hannah's  "  Bampton  Lecture,"  1863,  p.  241. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     201 

jected  to  the  same  scientific  tests  as  other  writings, 
the  book  being  taken  as  it  stands  and  judged  by 
the  light  it  brings.  A  true  critic  of  Virgil's  ^neid 
sinks  into  the  heart  of  that  great  poem,  catches 
from  within  the  strains  of  influence,  literary,  his- 
torical, contemporary,  which  guided  his  thoughts, 
and  impressed  their  mould  upon  this  crowning  ex- 
pression of  his  genius,  accumulates  every  fragment 
of  material  likely  to  throw  light  upon  the  author, 
his  times,  training,  and  so  forth,  and  so  sets  him 
in  his  true  place.  But  suppose  the  critics  started 
in  another  fashion,  and  set  up  other  Latin  writers 
as  a  standard  by  which  to  test  the  ^neid,  fixed 
upon  certain  things  which  we  must  not  expect  in 
such  a  poet  at  such  a  time,  and  treated  as  inter- 
polations whatever  passages  rose  above  all  existing 
models,  would  they  ever  be  likely  to  arrive  at  any 
conclusions  worth  listening  to  regarding  Virgil  or 
his  poem  ?  Yet  that  is  the  very  malpractice  of 
which  the  higher  critics  are  guilty,  and  in  an  ex- 
traordinary degree,  against  the  Old  Testament. 

The  critics  have  misunderstood  their  own  canon, 
or  rather — for  that  is  doing  them  too  much  honour 
— they  have  strained  and  perverted  it  to  a  false 
issue.  The  world  has  accepted  the  principle  in 
one  sense ;  they  have  used  it  for  another  and  very 
different  end.  What  we  have  all  assented  to  in 
this  canon  is,  that  the  claim  made  for  Scripture  of 
being  an   inspired  revelation  shall  not  be  allowed 


202  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

to  bar  unfettered  inquiry  into  the  dates,  author- 
ship, and  so  forth  of  the  documents. 

But  what  they  have  read  into  it  is,  that  the  laws 
and  methods  which  we  have  found  at  work  in 
other  ancient  writings  must  be  made  regulative 
in  judging  of  the  growth  of  the  Scriptures ;  that 
they  must  be  reduced  to  the  same  level,  and  treated 
as  on  a  footing  with  these  writings,  all  exceptional 
qualities  in  the  Scriptures  being  dealt  with  after 
heathen  analogies,  and  reduced  to  what  critics  have 
come  to  regard  as  natural  proportions. 

Now,  beyond  all  dispute,  this  is  a  flagrant 
begging  of  the  question.  What  warrant  have 
they  to  fix  the  limits  of  the  real  and  the  pro- 
bable within  certain  narrow  bounds,  and  simply 
rule  out  all  that  lies  beyond  as  unreal  ?  Their 
critical  equipment  gives  them  no  such  title,  even 
if  they  had  fully  and  fairly  appHed  their  law. 
This  is  an  a  priori  assumption,  which  vitiates 
their  conclusions.  What  they  must  do,  if  their 
word  is  to  be  taken,  is  to  indulge  in  no  assump- 
tions, to  be  loyal  to  fact  wherever  they  find  it, 
to  take  up  every  document  in  the  conditions  within 
which  it  has  arisen,  patiently  to  weigh  every  ex- 
ceptional element  in  the  light  of  all  the  circum- 
stances out  of  which  it  has  come,  and  of  the 
end  at  which  it  aims,  and,  free  of  the  binding 
chains  of  theory,  follow  reality  wherever  it  leads. 

Here    the    critics    are    far    behind    intellectual 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     203 

workers  in  other  fields.     Historians  used  to  write 
history  after  this  fashion  :  with  their  narrow  sec- 
tarian views  of  the  course  of  human  progress  they 
arrogated  all  good  to  their  own  party,  and  could 
find  only  the  most  crooked  and  corrupt   motives 
for  those  who  were  opposed.    How  different,  how- 
ever, is  the  course  to-day,  even  with  writers  who 
have    strong  convictions.     They  are   marked   not 
only  by  the  sense  of  fairness,  but  by  a  high  resolve 
to  bring  out  every  angle  and  aspect  of  the  fact,  to 
interpret,  from  within,  the  standpoints  of  the  com- 
batants, and  to  move  on  to  a  conclusion  after  every 
point  of  view  has  been  fairly  put,  and  each  interest 
has  been   adequately  represented.     Indeed,   truth 
demands  nothing  less.     The  partisan  spirit  of  the 
higher  criticism;   the   steady  refusal  to  allow  for 
facts  of  immense  import  in  determining  even  the 
external  history  of  Scripture  writings  ;   the  over- 
riding   of    obvious    spiritual     laws     by    heathen 
analogies  and    judgments   of   probability  and   im- 
probability ;   the  unwillingness  to  look  at  the  bare 
possibility    of   the    ancient    writings    which    they 
make  the  standard  being  a  record  of  an  unnatural 
condition,   in   which   noble  human    faculties  were 
making  an  ineffectual  struggle  against  corruption 
and   decay,    and   that  the    true    order   of  human 
progress   was   emerging    in   the    Scriptures   them- 
selves —  these    outstanding    characteristics    show 
how    prejudiced,    how    one-sided,    and    therefore 


204  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

how    radically     inconclusive     this     whole     critical 
method  has  been. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  how  can  we  act  otherwise 
if  the  plea  of  revelation  and  inspiration  is  not  to 
be  allowed  in  bar  of  evidence?  Our  answer  is 
definite  and  unmistakable.  These  pleas  are  not  to  be 
allowed  as  hindering  inquiry,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
implied  that  in  order  to  be  strictly  impartial  we 
must  go  away  from  the  outstanding  facts  and 
characteristic  qualities  of  Scripture,  and  not  give 
full  weight  to  such  circumstances  as  their  peculiar 
spirit,  their  internal  unity,  and  their  actual 
influence  on  the  world.  To  judge  them  in  studied 
oblivion  of  all  these,  by  heathen  analogies  and  the 
supposed  course  of  ethnic  development,  is  not 
justice  but  one-sidedness.  Critics  must  take  ac- 
count of  facts ;  must  give  a  full  and  dispassionate 
interpretatibn  of  all  the  facts  as  they  stand,  in  so 
far  as  these  can  be  supposed  to  influence  in  any 
way  the  growth  of  the  related  literature.  Though 
we  set  aside,  for  purposes  of  critical  inquiry,  the 
pleas  of  revelation  and  inspiration  as  barring  re- 
search, we  do  not  set  aside  the  objective  facts 
written  plainly  on  the  history  of  the  world,  which 
give  warrant  and  justification  for  these  pleas. 
How  in  the  name  of  reason  are  you  going  to 
explain  the  origin  of  a  literature  by  going  away 
from  all  that  is  most  characteristic  in  that 
literature  ? 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     205 

Perhaps  we  have  laboured  this  point  with 
sufficient  fulness ;  but  we  must  remember  that 
from  the  days  of  Grotius  to  those  of  Kuenen 
and  Wellhausen  this  defective  canon  of  criticism 
has  been  the  source  of  a  critical  treatment  of 
(especially)  Old  Testament  Scripture,  which,  more 
guarded  and  limited  to  begin  with,  has  reached  its 
natural  goal  in  the  revolutionary  theories  of  the 
higher  criticism.  If  we  are  not  to  have  a  recur- 
rence of  such  naturalistic  conclusions  we  must  make 
a  stand  for  a  better  critical  method,  without  bias 
and  exclusive  assumptions,  not  arbitrarily  shaping 
the  facts  which  afterwards  it  seeks  to  explain,  but 
receiving  them  as  they  come  in  the  course  of  pro- 
vidence, and  dealing  with  them  as  they  stand. 

To  show  how  completely  contrary  to  reality 
this  method  of  criticism  is,  let  us  enter  on  a  larger 
and  more  general  view.  Let  us  come  away  from 
the  special  theological  domain  and  look  at  critical 
methods  in  the  light  of  the  actual  progress  of  the 
world  in  ancient  and  modern  times. 

It  is  not  customary  to  explain  the  conquering 
by  the  superseded  force.  Yet  that  is  what  the 
critics  have  done.  They  join  hands  with  those 
anthropologists  who  on  natural  lines  describe 
how,  from  the  most  rudimentary  beginnings, 
men  grew  up  through  various  stages  of  clari- 
fying superstition  to  the  loftier  religions  and 
civilisations  of  the   ancient    world.       With    good 


2o6  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

scientific  warrant,  as  we  have  already  shown,  we 
refuse  to  accept  that  view  of  ancient  development. 
But,  at  any  rate,  that  old  world  ended  in  irredeem- 
able collapse.     Despite  the  periods  of  ascent  under 
the  spell  of  great  religious  leaders,  in  such  nations 
as  Greece  and  Rome,  India  and  China,  the  traces 
of  degeneracy  over  wide  areas  and  through  long 
centuries   are  unmistakable.     What   arrested  that 
collapse,   and  breathed   into  corrupt   peoples    life 
from  the  dead,  and  built  up  the  modern  world  on 
new  ethical  foundations,   was   the   spiritual    force 
which  entered  the  world  in   Judaism  when  it  had 
reached  full  expression  in  Christianity.     Yet  while 
they  are  compelled  to  admit  a   new  and  control- 
ling effect  in  history,  they  cannot  away  with  the 
idea^that  there  may  have  entered  into  history  a  new 
and  proportionate  cause.     They  must  explain  the 
new  overcoming  element  by  the   old    forces   and 
analogies   of  the    superseded    faiths !      Yes,    even 
although   they  are   compelled   to   admit,   as  many 
critics  are,  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  the  Bible  which 
is  not  of  earth,  they  must  perforce  tie  up  the  living 
spirit  of  God  to  the  lines  of  progress  in  heathen- 
dom, and  refuse  to  entertain  the  idea  that  He  may 
have  moved  out  to  the  redemption  of  man  on  a 
path  of  His  own. 

Nor  does  this  fact  stand  alone.  During  the 
nineteen  centuries,  despite  recession  and  decays, 
Scripture  has  been  moving  the  western  nations  to 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     207 

platforms  and  ideals  of  which  the  old  world  never 
dreamed;  and  for  a  century  past,  crowning  the 
progress  of  the  early  centuries,  Scripture,  in  the 
hands  of  her  children,  has  been  carrying  to  the 
moribund  nations  of  paganism  that  truth  which  is 
proving,  on  a  world-wide  scale,  to  be  the  agent  of 
individual  and  national  resurrection.  Yet,  although 
from  an  entirely  original  standpoint,  the  religion 
of  the  Bible  is  emancipating  the  world  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption,  criticism  refuses  to  believe 
that  it  may  have  come  into  the  world  to  effect  this 
all-transforming  end.  It  must  be  a  development 
out  of  the  same  natural  conditions  with  the  nations 
it  has  redeemed,  any  difference  between  it  and 
them  (which  only  some  of  the  critics  allowj  lying 
in  a  furtive  infusion  of  the  spiritual  into  select 
human  minds  at  later  stages ! 

Let  the  critics  say  what  they  please,  the 
theory  does  not  account  for  the  facts.  What 
Judaism  and  Christianity  have  effected  in  the 
world  demands  a  different  explanation  of  their 
origins.  In  the  seclusion  of  their  studies,  remote 
from  the  fierce  conflicts  in  which  the  destinies 
of  men,  upward  and  downward,  are  being  fixed, 
the  critics  put  all  this  treasure  of  fact  aside. 
They  confound  these  incontestable  realities  with 
theological  assumptions,  and  what  they  slightingly 
call  the  ecclesiastical  view;  and,  treating  the 
letter    of    Scripture    as    a    subject    for    anatomy, 


2o8  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

they  cut  and  carve,  set  up  their  analogies  and 
homologies  with  the  exhumed  skeletons  of  primi- 
tive beliefs,  in  utter  disregard  of  even  such  com- 
manding effects  as  we  have  described.  Such 
inquiries  may  have  an  academic  interest,  and 
satisfy  a  vain  curiosity,  but  as  a  solid  contribu- 
tion to  knowledge,  which  aspires  to  guide  action 
and  form  the  basis  of  an  organised  society,  they 
are  weighed  in  the  balances  and  found  wanting. 

(2)  Now  let  us  take  an  exposition  of  the 
critical  method  from  our  own  time.  And  we 
go  to  one  of  the  strongest  minds  which  have 
been  engaged  in  critical  research,  a  man  of 
enormous  resource,  and  with  a  keen  sense  of 
the  spiritual  element  in  Holy  Scripture.  The 
late  Professor  Robertson  Smith  ^  writes : 

"We  have  got  to  go  back  step  by  step,  and 
retrace  the  history  of  the  sacred  volume  up  to 
the  first  origin  of  each  separate  writing  which  it 
contains.  ...  It  is  not  needful  in  starting  to 
lay  down  any  fixed  rules  of  procedure.  The 
ordinary  laws  of  evidence  and  good  sense  must 
be  our  guides.  And  these  we  must  apply  to  the 
Bible  just  as  we  should  do  to  any  other  ancient 
book.  This  is  the  only  principle  we  have  to  lay 
down.  And  it  is  plainly  a  just  principle.  For 
the  transmission  of  the  Bible  is  not  due  to  a 
continued  miracle,  but  to  a  watchful  Providence 

1  "The  Old  Testament,  etc.,"  pp.  25,  26. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     209 

ruling    the    ordinary    means    by    which    ancient 
books  have  all  been  handed  down." 

To  these  words  in  themselves  we  have  little 
objection;  but  we  have  a  very  great  objection  to 
the  way  in  which  they  have  been  applied.  The 
writer  whom  we  have  just  quoted  is  among  the 
frankest  in  recognising  an  element  of  revelation 
in  Scripture.  But  this  canon  is  generally  in- 
terpreted to  mean  that  faith  in  the  Bible,  as 
being  a  writing  of  more  than  natural  force  and 
influence,  must  be  kept  in  a  water-tight  compart- 
ment, jealously  excluded  from  the  least  contact 
with  criticism.  Yea,  that  is  only  half  the  truth. 
The  critical  position  is  much  more  one-sided 
than  we  have  described.  Not  only  do  the  critics 
refuse  to  entertain  the  idea  that  the  exceptional 
contents  of  Scripture  might  have  had  some  con- 
trolling influence  on  the  dates  and  manner  of 
production  of  the  sacred  books,  but  they  calmly 
assume  that  mainly  such  motives  as  obtain  among 
men  and  in  ordinary  history  could  have  actuated 
the  writers. 

Reasonings  like  these  are  very  common.  The 
oldest  tradition  of  the  Pentateuch  is  found  in  the 
J  and  E  narratives — so  we  are  told ;  and  one  sure 
proof  that  J  belonged  to  the  southern  portion  of 
the  kingdom  is  that  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  while 
E  makes  Reuben  the  good  brother,  J  from  local 
jealousy  makes  Judah  to  occupy  that  place !     The 


2IO  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

legends  of  Abraham  and  Isaac — the  heroes  of  the 
southern  saga — are  given  more  fully  in  J  than  in 
E,  since  the  former  belongs  to  the  south ;  and  in 
the  E  portion  of  the  narrative,  patriotism  makes 
the  writer  change  the  patriarch's  habitat  from 
Hebron  to  Beersheba,  '-a  sanctuary  much  fre- 
quented by  pilgrims  from  the  northern  kingdom." 
And  this  was  the  level  of  motive  and  consideration 
on  which  writers  moved,  who  have  commanded 
the  attention  and  educated  the  higher  life  of 
mankind !  ^ 

Through  their  refusal  to  recognise  the  play  of 
higher  motives  and  considerations  which  might 
surely  have  risen  in  connection  with  so  lofty  a 
writing,  critics  are  driven  to  far  more  dubious 
expedients.  Since,  in  their  mistaken  adhesion 
to  a  biassed  theory,  they  will  not  receive  the 
self-witness  of  revelation  that  in  Mosaism  we 
have  a  true  delineation  of  a  creative  divine  be- 
ginning, to  support  their  naturalistic  view  they 
have  to  bring  in  the  hypothesis  of  personation 
and  conscious  fabrication. 

Now,  all  the  reasoning  in  the  world  cannot 
make  that  to  be  other  than  of  ill-savour.  And 
most  of  all  it  is  an  abhorrent  suggestion  when 
used  by  those  who  believe  that  there  is  a  real 
element  of  revelation  in  the  Old  Testament. 

It  was  lawful  for  the  writer  of  Deuteronomy, 

1  For  points  in  this  paragraph  see  ''  Encyclopsdia  Biblica,"  p.  1074. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     211 

for  instance,  to  personate  Moses  in  an  ideal  en- 
largement and  recasting  of  the  law,  to  invest  it 
with  a  vast  amount  of  personal  reminiscence  and 
historic  detail  so  as  to  create  the  impression  of 
a  contemporary  writing,  and  to  give  the  whole 
forth  as  his.  God  was  to  be  glorified,  and  the 
religion  which  was  to  save  men  from  all  sin  and 
bind  the  soul  to  the  absolute  True  was  to  be 
served,  by  schemes  such  as  these !  And,  worse 
in  a  sense  than  these,  after  the  prophets  had 
raised  to  an  unexampled  height  for  that  day  the 
moral  level,  it  was  seemingly  lawful  to  exalt  the 
national  beginnings  by  representing  as  a  creative 
revelation  given  by  God  from  Sinai,  what  was 
really  the  slow  and  natural  growth  of  centuries. 
That  is  simply  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  a 
vicious  method.  The  sane  conclusion  is  that  the 
critics  have  not  examined  all  the  facts,  and  that 
the  supposititious  causes,  which  they  gratuitously 
allege,  could  never  have  produced  the  books 
themselves,  or  the  unbroken  unity  in  which  they 
cohere.  You  cannot  get  at  the  real  origin  of 
the  several  books  composing  a  literature  without 
taking  some  account  of  their  contents,  quality, 
and  aim;  without  considering  how  these  may 
have  moulded  their  recipients,  and  set  new  cur- 
rents, active  and  reactive,  in  movement  through 
their  history.  In  the  passage  from  which  we 
have  already  quoted,  Professor  Robertson  Smith 


212  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

says:  '^ Every  fact  is  welcome,  whether  it  come 
from  Jewish  tradition  or  from  a  comparison  of 
old  MSS.  and  versions,  or  from  an  examination 
of  the  several  books  with  one  another,  and  of 
each  book  in  its  own  inner  structure."  And 
that  is  true  not  only  of  the  body  but  of  the 
soul  of  the  book. 

May  there  not  have  risen  out  of  this  literature 
a  sense  of  the  Divine,  a  transfiguring  faith,  which 
would  make  men  insensible  to  petty  local  jealousies 
in  striving  to  commit  to  writing  the  footprints  of 
God  in  their  history ;  which  would  make  them 
incapable  of  putting  words  into  His  mouth,  and 
presuming  to  eke  out  His  dread  self-manifestation 
with  fanciful  additions  .^^  Must  you  not  make 
allowance  for  these  moral  and  spiritual  effects  in 
trying  to  account  for  the  origins  and  succession 
of  this  literature  ^ 

Again,  if  there  be  such  a  breath  of  holiness  in 
this  book,  would  not  that  provoke  reaction  among 
some  of  the  people  ?  And  so  you  might  have  side 
by  side  in  a  generation,  ay,  in  the  same  individuals, 
lofty  spiritual  aptitudes  and  wild  reversions  to 
barbarism  and  lust.  If  you  did  not  take  that  into 
account  you  might  go  utterly  wrong,  concluding 
that  the  men  capable  of  the  barbarity  could  not 
belong  to  the  same  time  as  those  who  showed  the 
spiritual  insight,  that  the  man  who  killed  Uriah 
could  not  be  the  singer  of  the  sweetest  psalms. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     213 

Have  we  not  said  enough  to  show,  or  at  least  to 
suggest,  how  disregard  of  the  soul  of  the  literature 
might  occasion  critics  drawing  the  most  erroneous 
inferences  and  laying  down  the  most  mistaken 
conclusions  ?  But  we  must  go  further.  Recall 
Professor  Robertson  Smith's  assertion:  *'The 
Bible  does  speak  to  the  heart  of  man  in  words 
that  can  only  come  from  God."  But  does  not 
that  introduce  a  new  factor?  May  not  God 
have  a  method  of  discovering  Himself  all  His 
own  ?  And  if  that  be  possible,  you  must  con- 
sider that  possibility.  If  you  find  this  to  be 
true,  and  you  want  your  criticism  to  account  for 
all  the  facts  of  the  case,  you  must  reckon  with 
this  fact  likewise. 

"Ah,  but,"  you  say,  "we  were  to  deal  with 
the  Scriptures  in  the  same  way  as  with  all  other 
ancient  writings."  Of  course,  we  rejoin,  to  begin 
with,  giving  the  one  no  advantage  over  the  other. 
But  if,  as  you  pursue  your  inquiries,  you  find  that 
there  are  exceptional  elements  in  Scripture,  are 
you  not  to  say  honestly  out  what  you  find?  Are 
you  not  to  deal  with  the  exceptional  elements  as 
they  present  themselves,  according  to  all  the  facts, 
judging  righteous  judgment  ?  Is  criticism  simply 
to  be  paralysed  before  facts  that  cannot  be 
ignored?  And  since  it  has  been  living  so  long 
within  the  strait  limits  of  the  natural,  is  it  to 
be   allowed    to   disintegrate    the   Old   Testament 


214  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

in  the  vain  attempt  to  get  it  within  the  limits  of  the 
natural  ?  Rather  let  them  refuse  to  set  any  arbi- 
trary limit  to  the  realm  of  fact,  and  step  up  into 
the  higher  world  of  ethical  and  spiritual  forces  into 
which  Scripture  leads. 

In  the  bright  work  of  a  recent  naturalist  we  read 
a  story  of  a  menagerie  tiger,  which  rises  to  the 
memory  in  this  connection.  By  an  accident  his 
cage  was  broken  into  fragments,  and  he  was  set 
free.  His  first  impulse,  translated  instantly  into 
act,  was  to  leap  out  into  liberty.  But  in  his 
long  confinement  liberty  had  become  so  foreign 
to  him  that  he  leaped  back,  and  sat  crouching 
among  the  ruins.  We  have  in  these  last  genera- 
tions been  suffering  the  reality  of  the  spiritual 
to  be  circumscribed,  by  strait  theories  of  physical 
law  and  mechanical  evolution.  And  so  many 
Christians  prefer  to  crouch  amid  the  ruins  of  a 
disintegrated  revelation,  rather  than  dare  the  open, 
in  loyalty  to  every  side  of  their  natures,  and  in 
the  resolute  endeavour  to  search  every  avenue 
and  aspect  of  truth. 

II 

We  have  thus  seen  the  defects  of  method 
which  have  marked  the  investigation  of  the  Higher 
Criticism.  And  now  we  come  to  a  much  more 
difficult  task,  which  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
can  only,  to  begin  with,  be  very  imperfectly  accom- 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     215 

plished.  In  our  first  chapter  we  affirmed  that  there 
was  a  legitimate  place  for  criticism,  and  that,  even 
when  this  hypothesis  was  swept  away,  criticism 
must  proceed.  One  main  lesson,  then,  to  be 
learned  from  this  controversy  is  to  eliminate  error 
from  critical  methods,  and  in  the  light  of  experi- 
ence to  draw  out  and  lay  down  certain  rules 
which  must  be  observed  in  all  thorough  critical 
investigation  of  Scripture. 

True,  there  are  some  lessons  which  lie  on  the 
surface,  and  which  may  immediately  be  drawn. 
Most  new  sciences,  which  afterwards  have  risen 
to  great  place,  have  had  to  profit  by  mistakes. 
Astronomy  went  far  beyond  its  proper  sphere 
into  the  illusory  quests  of  astrology.  Chemistry 
set  out  on  many  a  fruitless  errand  after  the 
philosopher's  stone  and  the  elixir  of  life.  The 
dawn  of  geology  was  marked  by  the  fierce  con- 
flicts of  extreme  theories.  And  so  the  revival  of 
Hebrew  studies,  which  the  last  generation  has 
witnessed,  and  the  attempt  by  critical  methods 
to  break  into  and  lay  bare  the  sealed  centuries 
of  antiquity,  have  been  marked  by  a  boldness 
of  theory  which  the  sober  judgment  of  the 
world  will  not  support,  and  by  audacities  of 
method  which  have  gone  as  widely  aside  from 
the  realm  of  fact,  as  the  calculations  of  the 
astrologer  and  the  labours  of  the  alchemist. 
Criticism   is   coming   to  see   the   folly  of  tying 


2i6  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

itself  to  any  exclusive  theory  of  human  life 
and  progress.  Existing  to  discover  not  the 
loftier  truth  of  faith,  but  the  lower  truth  of 
fact,  it  should  be  simply  loyal  to  the  facts 
which  lie  outside  its  own  special  sphere.  The 
weapons  of  criticism  being  merely  external  tests, 
researches,  accumulations  of  illustrative  material, 
her  one  function  is  to  arrive,  from  without, 
at  an  adequate  judgment  of  date,  author- 
ship, circumstances,  aim,  and  end.  Even  when 
criticism  considers  the  contents  and  spirit  of  the 
writings,  it  is  only  to  find  a  clue  to  the  time 
when  they  might  have  been  written,  affinities 
which  may  throw  light  on  authorship,  and  the 
associations  amid  which  the  writings  may  have 
sprung.  It  is  for  Christians  generally,  and  for 
trained  Bible  students  in  especial,  to  approach 
revelation  from  the  central  standpoint,  and  by 
the  Spirit  enter  into  their  spiritual  compre- 
hension. This  is  the  only  plane  on  which  their 
contents  can  be  discovered  to  the  soul,  and  from 
which  they  can  put  their  power  forth  on  the 
individual  and  on  society. 

As  the  Bible  student  recognises  the  place  of 
the  critic,  the  critic  must  respect  the  spiritual 
findings  of  innumerable  saints,  martyrs,  confessors, 
thinkers,  who  in  the  power  of  the  truth  have  set 
up  a  world-wide  kingdom,  and  who,  despite  all 
diversities,  have  been  one  in  Christ  Jesus.     This 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     217 

is  what  Scripture  has  wrought  out  to  in  the  course 
of  the  world,  in  the  histories  of  nations,  and  in 
Hves  innumerable.  Surely  these  facts  are  to  enter 
into  the  critic's  reckoning.  He  has  no  right  to 
alter  these,  to  suppose  them  other  than  they  have 
discovered  themselves  to  be,  to  imagine  a  course 
of  events  leading  up  to  a  view  of  revelation  funda- 
mentally different  from  that  which  revelation  itself 
expresses.  That  is  not  scientific  criticism,  but 
disloyalty  to  the  realities  of  the  situation,  and 
speculation  in  face  of  the  facts. 

All  that  is  abundantly  plain,  and  has  been  fre- 
quently pointed  out  in  the  course  of  this  discussion. 
But  when  we  come  to  map  out  in  detail  a  true 
and  adequate  method  which  will  satisfy  every 
claim  of  criticism  to  thoroughness  and  independ- 
ence, and  yet  not  slur  over  and  leave  out  of 
account  all  the  claims  of  Scripture  to  full  and  fair 
consideration  as  a  wholly  exceptional  spiritual  force, 
we  can  only  hope  to  lay  down  a  first  tentative  set 
of  rules,  which  will  require  to  be  altered  and  im- 
proved by  subsequent  discussion. 

(i)  Every  writing  should  be  accepted  provision- 
ally as  it  stands,  and  studied  from  its  own  view- 
point, and  in  the  light  of  its  own  accompanying 
traditions.  Conjecture  should  only  be  resorted  to 
when  all  reasonable  probability  is  set  at  defiance, 
and  when  it  supplies  the  explanation  which  satisfies 
every  requirement  of  fact  and  judgment. 


2i8  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

If  one  reads  the  opening  pages  of,  say,  Kuenen's 
"History  of  Israel"  and  then  takes  note  of  the 
sentiments  and  practice  of  leading  historians,  he 
will  be  constrained  to  the  coriclusion  that  conjec- 
ture has  been  employed  to  a  wholly  unlawful 
extent  in  the  higher  criticism.  Froude  says, 
"Conjecture  is  of  little  value  in  history";  while 
it  has  been  the  critic's  chief  weapon. 

We  therefore  judge  that  literary  documents  are 
to  be  accepted  as  they  stand,  and  in  the  setting 
within  which  they  are  found  ;  at  least,  until  every 
possibility  of  a  rational  explanation  has  been  ex- 
hausted. 

Now,  in  the  present  case  this  has  not  been  done. 
Men  have  hurried  to  conjecture,  have  heaped 
together  all  sorts  of  surface  analogies  and  corre- 
spondences, without  exhausting  the  facts  of  Scrip- 
ture. Admitted  that  we  have  here  very  exceptional 
elements — miracle,  direct  communications  of  God, 
prophecy,  a  wonderful  interrelation  of  parts — and 
even  though  some  of  these  seem  to  have  analogy 
with  the  legendary  elements  of  other  histories, 
the  duty  of  criticism  is  without  prejudice  to 
examine  the  facts  before  arriving  at  any  conclusion. 
The  vice  of  so-called  scientific  inquiry  lies  in  the 
sudden  leaping  to  general  conclusions  through  a 
rash  use  of  inference  and  hypothesis.  So  Huxley 
tried  to  explain  life  by  delusive  analogies  that  left 
out   the   material  point.     So  did   the   Frenchman 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     219 

set  up  an  illusory  comparison  between  the  liver 
secreting  bile  and  the  brain  secreting  thought. 
So  did  Jeremy  Bentham  and  John  Stuart  Mill 
confound  moral  distinctions  with  a  totally  diiFerent 
principle  of  action,  utility.  The  manifoldness  of 
existence  is  in  constant  danger  from  speculators, 
who,  to  bring  the  universe  within  their  theory, 
leave  out  incongruous  facts. 

To  come  back  to  our  case.  Granted  the  excep- 
tional elements,  should  not  these  be  fairly  and 
without  prejudice  considered  by  the  hght  they 
bring?  Before  we  resort  to  any  hypothesis  about 
the  Old  Testament,  should  we  not  note  the  facts? 
There  are  many  circumstances  about  this  Book 
which  ought  to  give  us  pause.  Recall  the  state- 
ment of  Josephus,  quoted  in  an  earHer  chapter, 
in  which  he  says  that  the  attachment  of  the  Jews 
to  their  literature  was  on  a  very  different  plane 
from  that  of  the  Greeks  to  theirs.  Regarding 
them  as  Divine,  they  feared  to  alter  them  in  any 
way.  Frequently  they  '^  endured  racks  and  deaths 
of  all  kinds  upon  the  theatres  "  rather  than  say 
one  word  against  their  laws  and  the  records  that 
contained  them. 

Then  we  have  the  remarkable  tribute  paid  to 
the  literature  of  an  obscure  Asiatic  people  by  the 
most  cultured  nation  of  antiquity  in  the  production 
of  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Old  Testament. 
But  there  are  facts  of  far  deeper  significance  than 


220  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

these — the  passionate  devotion  of  a  nation  to  the 
Old  Testament,  and  most  of  all  to  the  Pentateuch, 
as  a  revelation  of  God ;  and  in  this  the  very  soul 
of  their  separation  from  all  other  nations ;  the 
spring  of  a  tenacious  valour  at  times,  as  under  the 
Maccabees,  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world ;  and 
the  fertiliser  not  only  of  intense  personal  piety  but 
of  spiritual  thought,  which  led  them  to  clearer 
definition  and  fuller  expression  of  many  truths 
lying  less  clearly  defined  in  Holy  Scripture.  We 
have  seen  already  how  the  age  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  received  the  Pentateuch  with  unspeak- 
able reverence  and  submission  as  the  very  voice 
of  God.  Those  are  phenomena  worthy  of  atten- 
tion. 

And  when  we  take,  say,  the  Pentateuch  from 
the  hands  of  Ezra,  we  find  everything  in  keeping 
with  these  effects.  We  find  a  history  of  a  crea- 
tive Divine  purpose  working  itself  by  successive 
steps  from  Abraham  to  Moses  into  the  life  of  the 
Jewish  nation — a  kind  of  fact  to  which,  as  the 
late  Bishop  Westcott  told  us,  there  is  no  parallel 
among  heathen  nations.  And,  wonderful  to  tell, 
through  a  strangely  chequered  and  very  dis- 
appointing after  history,  that  Divine  purpose  goes 
on — not  merely  to  repeat  itself,  but  to  reappear 
in  strikingly  original  forms  and  in  more  articulate 
expression  in  far  separated  ages.  These  are  facts 
surely  very  pertinent   to   the   task  of  forming   a 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     221 

judgment  regarding  these  writings — unprecedented 
and  unparalleled  facts,  unlike  anything  else  to  be 
found  in  the  world. 

And  now,  looking  down  the  stream,  there  is 
another  fact  which  throws  even  these  into  the 
shade.  Old  Testament  Scripture  ceases,  many- 
think  nowadays,  not  with  Malachi,  but  with  such 
books  as  Ecclesiastes  and  Daniel.  Still,  across  an 
eventful  gap,  the  spirit  of  the  old  religion  reasserts 
itself;  ay,  and  much  more  than  that,  all  the  threads 
of  purpose  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  are 
gathered  up  and  find  their  ideal  fulfilment  in  a 
series  of  historic  events,  reaching  their  crown  in  the 
death,  resurrection,  and  ascension  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Are  events  like  these  to  be  left  out  of  account 
in  estimating  the  Hterature  which  contains  them? 
Surely  the  exceptional  facts  point  to  exceptional 
causes  being  at  work.  And  if  criticism  satisfies 
itself  with  these  is  it  not  bound  to  speak  out  its 
honest  mind  ?  Think  of  critics  going  away  from 
all  that,  refusing  to  make  allowance  for  such 
incontestable  truths,  and  bringing  analogies  from 
a  totally  different  condition  of  things,  that  of  a 
decadent  heathenism,  to  serve  as  a  Procrustes' 
bed  on  which  Scripture  must  be  forcibly  dis- 
jointed. Henceforth,  before  there  can  be  any 
question  of  conjecture  and  imaginative  reconstruc- 
tion, criticism  must  show  that  it  has  exhausted 
every  possible  solution  of  the  facts  as  they  stand. 


222  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

(2)  In  connection  with  Scripture,  then,  there 
are  exceptional  elements  of  a  very  remarkable 
kind,  and  we  must  be  ready  to  take  account  of 
any  new  forces  which  may  have  come  into  in- 
dividual character  as  helping  in  part  to  account 
for  the  origins  of  Scripture. 

This  is  a  point  of  much  greater  importance  than 
may  at  first  sight  appear.  Scripture  is  suffering 
from  presumptions  underlying  modern  discussion, 
which  are  not  fair  to  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
which  leave  out  of  view  most  important  elements 
necessary  to  a  just  conclusion.  A  process  of 
minimising  marks  this  movement,  which  is  not 
scientific  rigour,  but  betrays  a  lack  of  broad  im- 
partiality in  weighing  all  the  points  in  the  case, 
and  an  eagerness  to  make  for  the  negative  and 
lowest  possible  solution. 

For  instance,  we  hear  it  said,  whatever  the 
story  of  creation  may  be,  it  is  not  history.  There- 
fore, what  can  it  be  but  legend?  And  when 
other  accounts  are  found,  such  as  the  Chaldsean, 
what  can  the  Bible  account  be  but  a  copy  of 
this  ?  Yea,  rioting  in  the  furthest  possibilities  of 
negative  suggestion,  critics  throw  out  the  mere 
guess,  that  this  story,  placed  in  the  forefront  of 
our  sacred  books,  may  have  come  in  so  late  as  the 
Exile.  Is  that  a  kind  of  intellectual  process  which 
a  disciplined  judgment  can  receive  with  respect? 
It  deserves  no  respect,  being  only  bold  guessing 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     223 

in  a  negative  interest.  They  have  not  taken  full 
account  of  all  the  documents.  Genesis  is  a 
document  as  truly  as  that  exhumed  in  1875  by 
the  late  George  Smith.  Because  it  has  been  in 
the  hands  of. civilised  people  for  far  more  than 
two,  possibly  three  thousand  years,  it  is  not  the 
less,  but  rather  the  more,  to  be  considered.  The 
account  is  inherently  more  worthy  of  respect  than 
any  other.  Free  from  every  mythical  element 
disfiguring  the  various  accounts,  it  stands  a  most 
worthy  and  noble  beginning  of  a  revelation  which 
still  commands  the  submission  of  the  most  advanced 
peoples. 

We  have  here,  also,  some  light  as  to  when 
and  how  this  narrative  was  written  down  for 
posterity.  In  the  Mosaic  Age,  during  a  period 
of  profound  religious  upheaval,  after  God  had 
come  forth  into  a  positive  historical  relation  to 
His  people,  and  they  had  been  brought  into 
covenant  relation  with  Him,  Moses,  with  the 
instinct  of  a  great  prophet,  evidently  felt  that 
since  this  movement  must  have  a  meaning  and 
influence  upon  all  the  future,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  relate  it  to  God's  discoveries  of  Himself  which 
had  gone  before.  Here  we  see  how  religion  lifts 
him  above  all  ordinary  motives  of  the  annalist, 
and  bring  in  new  forces,  purifying  and  controlling 
his  whole  activity.  He  is  discovering  the  doings  of 
the  holy,  eternal  One.     He  is  unravelling  a  Divine 


2  24  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

thought,  only  to  be  served  by  the  sifted  truth,  and 
in  nowise  by  the  imaginations  of  men.  He  has  got" 
a  clue,  also,  to  the  meaning  of  time,  as  the  unfold- 
ing of  a  purpose  of  education  and  redemption.  And 
more,  he  abases  himself,  that  in  his  continual  sub- 
mission God  may  guide  him  into  the  truth. 

Even  as  parts  of  a  critical  equipment  for  getting 
at  the  kind  of  truth  he  was  seeking,  were  not  these 
forces  valuable  ?  We  see  him  travelling  up  the 
stream  of  time,  through  the  ever  receding  tradi- 
tions of  his  people,  back  to  Jacob,  Isaac,  Abraham ; 
and  at  every  backward  step  the  movements  of  God 
in  preparation  stand  out  in  original  Divine  reality. 
Then,  with  the  master  thought  before  him  that 
God  was  moving  on  to  a  world-end,  he  relates 
the  history  of  his  own  people  to  the  larger  world 
by  tracing  the  genealogy  of  Abraham  to  Shem. 
But  even  here  he  does  not  stop.  These  first 
eleven  chapters  of  Genesis  are  the  most  wonderful 
historic  writing  in  the  world.  Through  the  line 
of  Shem  he  reaches  out  within  wider  horizons 
still  to  the  well-heads  of  the  three  chief  branches 
of  the  human  race,  in  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet. 
God  had  said  to  him,  "  All  the  earth  is  Mine." 
What  had  been  happening  at  Sinai  had  signifi- 
cance for  all  mankind,  and  it  was  for  him  to  bring 
them  into  relation. 

Up   till  now  we  can  easily  conceive  Moses  to 
have  been  guided  by  tradition,  the  inner  meaning 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     225 

and  fulness  of  which  were  opened  up  by  God. 
But  even  here  his  adventurous  spirit  does  not  resi. 
Crossing  the  gulf  of  the  flood,  he  travels  back 
through  silent  generations  which  may  have  left 
some  traces  in  the  huge  masses  of  Cyclopean 
architecture  htre  and  there,  and  in  the  remains 
of  prehistoric  museums. 

But  it  may  be  said,  who  of  us  can  be  sure 
that  he  is  on  historic  ground  here?  May  he 
not  have  swept  together  loose  and  vague  tradi- 
tions, holding  for  facts  what  were  fancies,  and 
not  discriminating  realities  from  dreams  ?  How 
can  we  attach  importance  to  writings  that  can  have 
little  or  nothing  to  show  for  their  historic  worth  ^ 

At  this  point  we  wish  to  call  attention  to  a  great 
wonder.  Archaeology  has  discovered  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  all  primitive  peoples  ihe  most  ample  proof 
that  Moses  is  on  the  line  of  actuality,  or  at  least 
what  primitive  peoples  received  as  actual,  back  to 
the  creation.  Allow  me  to  quote  from  a  writer 
of  repute,  Ebrard :  ^  ^'The  most  diverse  peoples, 
sprung  from  the  most  diverse  stems,  have  the 
remembrance  of  one  common  primitive  history  of 
their  common  ancestors,  and  this  common  ground 
in  their  reminiscences  extends  down  exactly  to  the 
building  of  the  tower  and  the  confusion  of  lan- 
guages,  and   no   further."     And   more   in   detail: 

1  "Christian  Apologetics,"  vol.   iii.  pp.  319-321,  Clark's  Theological 
Library. 


2  26  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

"  To  all  parts  of  the  earth  they  took  the  remem- 
brance of  one  invisible  God,  who  in  the  beginning 
had  revealed  Himself  visibly  to  man ;  of  a  sin 
committed  by  the  first  parents,  begun  by  the  wife 
in  her  eating  of  forbidden  fruit  under  the  influence 
of  a  tempter,  who  for  the  most  part  appears  in 
connection  with  a  serpent ;  of  the  entrance  of 
death  as  consequence  and  punishment  of  this  sin ; 
of  a  brother's  murder;  of  three  brothers  who  dis- 
covered the  arts,  namely,  the  working  of  metals  ; 
of  a  race  of  mighty  men  or  giants  who  rebelled 
against  God;  of  a  flood  that  covered  the  highest 
mountains,  in  which  all  men  but  one  family 
perished ;  of  a  mountain  on  whose  top  this  family 
landed ;  of  birds  which  the  father  of  this  family 
sent  forth  ;  of  a  rainbow  which  stood  in  some  rela- 
tion to  their  deliverance  ;  of  the  three  sons  of  this 
man  as  ancestors  of  the  various  peoples ;  of  a  new 
rebellion  against  God,  when  men  sought  to  rear  a 
building  which  should  reach  to  heaven  ;  of  a  fire 
from  heaven  which  destroyed  this  building,  con- 
fused the  languages,  and  scattered  the  races  of 
mankind  over  the  face  of  the  earth." 

But,  in  addition  to  facts  like  these,  which  are 
surely  remarkable,  we  have  in  the  Babylonish  crea- 
tion epic  "  remarkable  parallels  to  the  first  Biblical 
cosmogony."  The  higher  critic  who  uses  these 
words  admits  ''  that  it  might  be  possible  to  explain 
the   Babylonian   myth    as   a   development   of   the 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION      227 

simpler  and  purer  tradition  contained  in  the  Bible," 
although  he  cannot  accept  this,  mainly  because  he 
has  accepted  the  view  that  the  Bible  account  was 
drawn  up  in  the  Exile.  ^  Having  been  delivered 
from  submission  to  the  critical  theory  in  previous 
chapters,  we  take  the  writer's  words  as  briefly 
establishing  the  essential  concord  of  the  account 
in  Genesis  with  other  ancient  traditions. 

And  now  to  draw  our  conclusion,  and  from  this 
estabhsh  the  reasonableness,  and  indeed  necessity, 
of  our  second  rule.  Is  it  not  most  remarkable  how 
from  every  corner  of  the  earth  there  have  turned 
up  a  multitude  of  independent  witnesses  that 
Moses  is  on  the  trunk  line  of  universal  human 
tradition  ?  But  there  is  something  far  more  remark- 
able than  that.  In  all  these  other  peoples  those 
primitive  traditions  subsisted  as  mere  recollections, 
more  or  less  fading,  modified  by  tricks  of  memory 
and  the  iridescence  of  imagination,  and  having 
no  relation  to  the  present  and  the  future.  But  in 
one  nation,  and  one  writing,  not  only  do  they 
appear  in  a  purer  form,  but  they  stand  out  in  a 
visible  and  definite  relation  to  God,  as  the  first 
steps  in  and  toward  His  divine  purpose,  on  a  level 
with,  and  related  to,  all  that  is  to  follow. 

Of  course,  if  men  will  abide  on  the  level  of 
naturalism,  and  refuse  to  take  account  of  these 
outstanding    facts — if    everything    must    be    ex- 

'  Hastings'  "  Bible  Dictionary,"  Art.  Cosmogony^  vol.  i.  505. 


228  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

plained  on  purely  natural  grounds  by  ordinary 
means — they  must  be  left  to  blunder  on  with  their 
utterly  inconsistent  supposition,  that  Israel  borrowed 
from  Babylon,  yet  so  wonderfully  improved  on 
Babylon.  But  why  shut  out  those  higher  ele- 
ments— that  Moses  had,  in  the  great  movement 
culminating  at  Sinai,  caught  a  ghmpse  of  the 
Divine  purpose,  and  so  entered  into  the  meaning 
of  ''  the  dark  backward  abyss  of  time  "  in  relation 
thereto  ;  and  that  he  was  able,  not  only  to  remove 
the  imaginative  and  retain  the  actual  in  old  tradi- 
tions, but  to  bring  out  their  essential  Divine  signi- 
ficance in  relation  to  all  that  was  to  come  ?  That 
is  what  has  actually  been  done,  as  even  critics  con- 
fess. Why  do  they  refuse,  then,  to  face  the  whole 
problem ;  to  entertain  the  supposition  that  excep- 
tional effects  may  have  had  very  distinguishing 
causes ;  and  to  study  without  prejudice  every  new 
element  of  consecrated  character  and  spiritual 
illumination  which  may  have  entered  into  so  un- 
exampled a  result  ? 

And  now  I  must  state  and  illustrate  much  more 
briefly  the  next  three  rules. 

(3)  Where  elements  are  found  in  a  Hterature, 
which  are  fitted  to  exert,  and  have  actually  exerted, 
a  highly  special  influence,  these  may  have  had  the 
effect  of  rapidly  ripening  the  human  spirit  in 
certain  directions,  and  starting  new  and  early 
literary  developments. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     229 

Nothing  is  more  certain,  to  a  thoughful  reader 
perusing  works  of  modern  criticism,  than  that 
judgments  are  passed  on  dates,  and  circumstances, 
and  authorship  of  works,  on  imperfect  and  even 
erroneous  canons.  Thus,  Wellhausen,  who  regards 
the  Psaker  as  the  hymn-book  of  the  Congregation 
of  the  Second  Temple,  goes  on  to  say:  "The 
question  is  not  whether  it  contains  any  post-exilic 
psalms,  but  whether  it  contains  any  pre-exilic 
psalms."  And  Professor  Cheyne,  in  his  Bampton 
Lecture  on  "The  Origin  and  Religious  Contents 
of  the  Psalter,"  has  maintained  that  ''the  whole 
Psalter,  with  the  possible  exception  of  parts  of 
Psalm  xviii.,  is  exilic,  belonging  mainly  to  the 
Persian  and  Greek  period,  and  containing  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Maccabsean  Psalms."^ 

The  clue  to  such  extreme  opinions  of  Canon 
Cheyne  is  given  in  the  very  title  of  his  volume. 
The  origin  and  contents  of  the  Psalter  are  con- 
sidered "in  the  light  of  Old  Testament  criticism 
and  the  history  of  Religions."  Subjective  ideas 
of  a  natural  development,  and  comparison  of  the 
progress  of  thought  and  belief  in  heathen  nations, 
are  allowed  positively  to  determine  the  dates  of 
Hebrew  Psalms.  But  it  is  matter  of  common 
notoriety  that  epoch-making  movements  exert  the 
most  powerful  quickening  influence  on  the  hterary 

1  For   references    and    summary,    see    Kirkpatrick,   -'The   Book    of 
Psalms,"  xxxvii.,  xxxviii. 


230  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

activities  of  their  time.  That  great  era  in  Euro- 
pean history  of  which  the  origin  of  printing,  the 
discoveries  of  Columbus,  the  revival  of  learning, 
and,  crowning  all,  the  Reformation,  were  chief 
factors,  set  in  motion  in  many  directions  new 
trends  of  intellectual  activity.  Rapidly  struck  out 
in  the  heat  and  fervour  of  a  great  inspiration, 
principles,  ideals,  views  of  human  rights  and  duty 
were  in  short  space  produced,  that  have  governed 
Europe  and  America  ever  since. 

Could  men  have  been  brought  into  fellowship 
with  God  at  Sinai,  could  they  have  realised  His 
continuous  presence  in  their  history,  and  His 
wonderful  deliverance  for  them,  without  that 
reacting  on  their  life,  and  on  their  thought  and 
feeling?  Is  it  at  all  unbelievable  that  such 
exceptional  influences  would  originate  literary 
works  out  of  the  common  ?  Is  it  difficult  to 
imagine  that  David,  that  great  chief,  though 
marked  by  many  rude  traits  of  his  time,  might 
be  caught  up  into  flights  of  song,  realising  God's 
distinguishing  goodness  to  Jesse's  shepherd  son, 
and  the  far-reaching  purpose  which  He  had  in 
view  in  raising  him  to  the  throne  ?  What  hap- 
pened in  other  nations  may  be  helpful,  but  is  not 
authoritative.  The  facts  which  we  accumulated  in 
Chapter  V.  about  the  Accadian  Psalms,  and  the 
outburst  of  Homeric  song  at  the  dawn  of  the 
Greek  history,   show  that   there   is   no   room  for 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION 


231 


dogmatism.  Account  must  be  taken  of  all  these 
special  circumstances  in  Israel's  history,  and  if  they 
reasonably  explain  the  existence  of  earlier  and 
striking  outbursts  of  song,  that  should  be  decisive, 
despite  what  obtained  elsewhere. 

Let  us  pause  on  this  point  a  moment  further. 
The  origins  of  Israel  were  so  peculiar,  brought 
Israel  into  so  special  a  relation  to  God,  that  they 
have  produced  a  literature  wholly  unexampled 
in  the  heathen  world.  Where  have  you  any 
writings  like  those  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  ? 
These  sprang  in  unexampled  splendour  from 
the  vision  and  faith  of  Israel  under  Divine 
guidance. 

Again,  where  else  is  a  literary  phenomenon  to  be 
found  like  that  of  "  Job,"  in  which  we  have  a  soul 
wresthng  with  the  problem  of  right  in  relation  to 
God,  which  was  only  effectually  raised  in  Israel, 
and  reaching  out  to  a  vision  of  the  Divine — not 
only  holding  to  His  due,  but  putting  Himself  in 
the  place  of  the  creature  to  fulfil  and  help — surely 
a  vivid  anticipation  of  Messiah,  and  of  the  full 
revelation  in  Christ.'^ 

If  monuments  so  solitary  and  wonderful  sprang 
from  the  Jewish  spirit,  who  shall  refuse  to  allow 
to  the  Hebrew  lyrical  genius,  in  touch  with  God, 
much  more  than  was  possible  to  heathen  singers  ? 
They  did  not  need  Persian  prompting  to  express 
their  belief  in  immortality  I     Such  a  conviction  lies 


232  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

implicit  in  real  contact,  such  as  Moses  and  David 
enjoyed,  with  God. 

But,  (4)  with  such  a  Divine  Creative  movement 
as  that  ^vhich  started  Israel's  history,  allowance 
must  be  made  for  very  powerful  reactions  and 
reversions  from  time  to  time. 

This  indicates  another  frequent  source  of  error 
in  the  higher  criticism.  One  great  reason  why 
critics  will  not  accept  the  Mosaic  economy  as  it 
stands  is  because  when  they  come  down  to  after- 
times  they  find  the  people  rude,  half  savage,  with 
an  undeveloped  worship,  and  the  ideals  and 
even  practice  of  Sinai  almost  sunk  out  of  sight. 
And  so  they  imagine  a  slow  natural  development 
up  from  heathenism — from  nature-festivals  and  a 
religion  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  sur- 
rounding tribal  cults. 

This  speculation  suits  the  natural  temper  of  our 
time ;  but  such  a  view  is  inadequate  and  un- 
scientific. A  religion  which  sprang  from  the 
ground  keeps  to  the  ground.  If  there  be  nothing 
save  the  earthly  and  natural  in,  nothing  save  that 
can  come  out.  But  when  you  look  at  Jewish 
naturalism,  so-called,  you  find  in  the  deepest 
descent  that  "a  spark  disturbs  the  clod."  Events 
happen  that  have  no  correspondence  in  heathenism. 
Men  and  women  arise — Ehud,  and  Deborah,  and 
Barak,  and  Gideon — who  display  devotion  to  God 
unquenched    in    Israel,    and    rally    the    nation    to 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     233 

Jehovah.  Even  when  very  imperfect,  the  men 
are  after  the  type  of  former  heroes  of  faith. 
Then  the  drift  is  not  in  the  main  to  degeneracy. 
Samuel  comes  forth  an  ideal  character  and  leads 
Israel  upwards.  No,  no !  This  is  not  a  story  of 
natural  development  up  from  Paganism,  but  the 
story  of  reaction  from,  and  then  restoration  to,  a 
great  creative  beginning  which  lay  behind.  The 
history  cannot  be  understood  on  any  other  footing 
than  that.  We  cannot  leave  the  spiritual  con- 
stituents out,  if  we  v/ould  understand  this  history 
and  its  expression  in  literature.  We  must  enter 
into  the  actions  and  reactions,  the  lofty  possibilities, 
the  disastrous  declensions,  of  a  nation  standing  in 
a  solitary  relation  to  God  from  the  beginning,  that 
it  might  be  an  example  to  the  world. 

And  now,  (5)  the  origins  are  fairly  to  be  judged 
in  the  light  of  effects  and  outcomes. 

Remember  that  we  are  dealing  here  from  begin- 
ning to  end  with  the  conscious  experiences  of  men. 
And  we  lay  down  as  an  all-inclusive  rule  that  we 
may  provisionally  take  for  granted  that,  however 
obscure  the  origins  of  a  religion  may  be,  we  may 
judge  of  their  quality  by  that  to  which  they  work 
out. 

In  saying  this  we  are  simply  affirming  that  all 
growths  are  true  to  their  kinds.  You  cannot 
gather  grapes  of  thorns  and  figs  of  thistles.  If 
a  movement  is  founded  in  selfishness,  under  every 


234  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

disguise  the  selfish  base  will  appear.  Now,  here 
the  unbeheving  critics  are  perfectly  consistent. 
The  outcome — Christianity — is  in  their  view  a 
natural  growth,  and  they  may  consistently  hold 
that  the  origins  in  Judaism  are  natural.  The 
inconsistency  lies  with  those  who  hold  the  Divine 
origin  and  revealed  character  of  Christianity,  and 
who  would  yet  trace  back  Judaism  to  a  slow 
natural  growth  up  from  the  ground  of  ordinary 
heathen  worship.  But  in  this  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  intellectual  confusion.  Natural  religion 
(beyond  the  instinctive  sense  of  Deity  with  which 
there  is  evidence  that  all  religions  began)  is  a 
projection  of  man's  own  mind,  an  attempt  to 
shadow  forth  dim  and  perverted  instincts.  Myth- 
ology is  a  disease  of  thought.  Writers  go  on  the 
assumption  of  Jehovah  being  a  tribal  God,  as  if 
He  grew  ;  whereas  what  developed  was  only  man's 
knowledge  of  Him.  There  is  do  gradual  transition 
from  these  dreams  of  alien  and  self-centred  man 
to  the  veritable  Divine,  coming  down  into  human 
life  with  His  own  holy  will,  setting  at  nought  the 
thoughts  of  man,  leaving  no  place  for  them,  seeking 
to  lift  man  to  converse,  and  to  fill  him  with  His 
Spirit.  The  idea  of  a  slow  development  up  from 
one  level  to  the  other  is  an  absurdity.  Whenever 
God  came,  under  whatever  primitive  forms.  He 
came  from  His  own  Divine  centre,  distinct,  divine, 
individual,  to  put  an  end  to  the  false  dreams  of 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  REVELATION     235 

man.  Therefore  the  fair  and  proper  assumption 
on  which  to  go,  till  facts  disprove  it,  is  that  if 
there  be  a  real  revelation  from  God  in  the  cul- 
mination, Christianity,  religion  will  have  been  on 
that  level  from  the  beginning  in  Judaism. 

Of  course,  these  five  rules  are  mere  tentative 
sketches  of  canons  such  as  we  are  assured  dis- 
passionate critics  must  lay  down,  if  they  are  to 
arrive  at  the  exact  truth  regarding  such  a  literature 
as  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  may  be 
imperfectly  drawn,  unwisely  expressed,  defective 
possibly,  or  possibly  redundant ;  still,  they  are  a 
beginning.  Criticism  when  dealing  with  Scripture 
is  not  engaged  in  an  academic  question,  but  in  a 
study  which  affects  very  powerfully  sacred  human 
interests.  It  should  not  toy  with  such  problems 
in  absence  of  the  main  factors  making  for  a  con- 
clusion. What  we  want  is  truth,  fact,  reahty  in 
relation  to  the  external  history  of  this  literature, 
whose  contents  have  brought  life  to  the  world ; 
and  it  is  our  interest,  as  practical  men,  to  see  that 
no  orders  of  fact  are  left  out  of  view  which  can 
contribute  to  a  rational  and  truly  reliable  con- 
clusion. 


VII 


THE   TRUE   ORDER   AND    PROGRESSION 
OF    HEBREW   HISTORY 

Rev.  xix.  lo  :   "  The  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy." 

With  profound  gratitude  to  God  we-  put  our 
hands  to  the  last  chapter  of  this  volume,  which 
has  been  prepared,  from  month  to  month,  under 
an  accumulation  of  other  cares  even  more  than 
ordinarily  burdensome.  We  have  been  discussing 
in  these  past  chapters  an  artificial  order  imposed 
upon  Old  Testament  Scripture,  whose  inadequacy 
has  been  exposed  at  many  points,  and  whose 
foreignness  to  the  spirit  of  revelation  has  abund- 
antly appeared.  Now,  by  way  of  conclusion,  we 
desire  briefly  to  discover  and  unfold  the  true 
order  lying  imbedded  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  principle  of  progression  as  discovered  in  the 
relation  of  the  several  books. 

Of  course,  this  can  only  be  done  by  way  of 
suggestion,  and  by  inference  from  the  distinctive 
doctrine  of  revelation  which  we  have  enunciated 
in  these  chapters.  Taking  into  account  the  spiritual 
side  of  revelation  in  the  way  we  suggested  in  last 

chapter,  sound  and  accurate  critics  must  yet  deal 

236 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  237 

with  each  part  in  detail,  fixing,  so  far  as  possible, 
the  date,  authorship,  etc.,  of  each  psalm  and  book 
and,  it  may  be,  fragment.  We  purpose  showing, 
in  stay  of  judgment,  and  as  indicating  the  reversals, 
of  the  critical  view,  which  are  sure  to  ensue  when 
the  present  hypothesis  is  set  aside,  how  much  may 
be  said  in  general  terms  for  the  Biblical  order  as 
it  at  present  stands,  and  especially  what  a  profound 
continuity  marks  that  progression  of  life,  institu- 
tion, literature,  represented  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  it  has  come  down  supported  by  tradition  from 
pre-Christian  times. 

There  is  one  thing  about  the  higher  criticism 
which  we  thoroughly  appreciate — the  attempt  to 
introduce  the  scientific  spirit,  the  attempt  to  vindi- 
cate its  view  of  Scripture,  at  the  broad  bar  of 
history  and  the  world's  judgment.  We  believe 
that  we  have  in  Scripture  the  truth  about  God, 
the  absolute  fundamental  truth,  of  which  all  other 
truths,  physical,  biological,  intellectual,  moral,  are 
aspects  or  subordinate  manifestations.  Therefore, 
whether  dealing  externally  with  the  text,  or  in- 
ternally with  the  truth,  we  ought  to  present  it 
as  that  which  has  affinity  with  all  the  thinkings 
of  man,  and  can  vindicate  itself  at  the  bar  of 
universal  reason. 

But  in  doing  this  we  are  not  to  make  light  of 
the  spiritual,  in  order  to  give  first  place  and  full 
scope  to  the  natural.     The  spiritual  stands  on  its 


238  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

own  feet,  is  a  constituent  of  experience,  as  much 
as  the  material,  and  must  be  studied  by  the  laws 
which  it  discovers,  and  in  the  light  which  it  brings. 
In  the  moral,  which  is  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  men 
to  God,  in  the  universal,  inextinguishable  sense  of 
God,  we  see  that  there  is  a  whole  side  of  man 
which  fronts  God  and  which  thirsts  for  communion 
with  Him.  And  more,  in  coming  into  conscious 
life  through  Christ,  the  spiritual  has  exerted  such 
influence  upon  individual  character  and  social  and 
pubhc  movements  that  it  can  neither  be  discounted 
nor  dismissed.  We  need  not  fear  to  assert  for 
the  spiritual,  aad  for  God's  discovery  of  Himself 
to  man's  spirit,  all  which  they  can  rightfully  claim. 
That  is  not  sectarianism,  but  going  for  the  whole 
truth.  If  men  will  ignore  one  side  of  experience 
and  all  that  belongs  to  it,  if  they  will  insist  on 
explaining  the  whole  by  the  half,  they  must  be 
left  to  be  confronted  by  their  insoluble  enigmas 
and  impaled  on  their  flagrant  inconsistencies. 

Because  we  insist,  however,  that  the  unique 
element  in  Scripture  is  to  be  fully  and  fairly 
allowed  for,  we  by  no  means  admit  that  we  are 
shutting  up  the  Church  to  a  forced  and  unnatural 
view.  Rather  do  we  confidently  affirm  that  not 
until  we  take  full  account  of  all  the  facts  pertain- 
ing to  Old  Testament  literature,  can  we  discern 
the  original  and  highly  characteristic  development 
from  within  of  a  living  revelation.      Every  order 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY 


239 


of  facts  has  a  development  characteristic  of  itself. 
First  come  the  mechanical  processes  of  dead  matter. 
Then  we  have  development  on  a  new  plane,  in 
plants  and  animals,  from  a  life  centre,  and  by  laws 
peculiar  to  organic  beings.  Although  there  have 
been  loud  boasts  to  that  effect,  there  is  no  resolv- 
ing the  higher  kind  of  development  into  the  lower. 
Then,  across  a  still  wider  gulf,  you  have  develop- 
ment of  sensation  and  intelligence  on  a  plane  so 
manifestly  distinct,  and  by  processes  so  irremov- 
ably  separate  from  the  material,  that  Herbert 
Spencer  frankly  admits  that  the  causes  by  which 
physical  processes  like  motion  and  light  are 
changed  into  the  mental  experience  of  sound  and 
visions  are  "  mysteries  which  it  is  not  possible 
to  fathom."^ 

Now,  just  as  among  evolutionists  in  the  field  of 
natural  science  a  strong  effort  has  been  made  to 
reduce  all  existence  to  an  affair  of  mechanics,  so 
critics  have  begun  by  endeavouring  to  reduce  the 
Old  Testament  to  a  level  and  a  kind  of  develop- 
ment lower  than  that  to  which  it  belongs.  There- 
fore, to  all  the  assertions  made  by  eminent  men 
(some  of  which  we  quoted  in  Chapter  V.),  that 
theirs  is  the  view  which  presents  the  natural 
development  of  Israel,  we  say: — By  no  means; 
yours  is  an  alien  theory  forced  from  without  on  an 
order  of  facts  belonging  to  a  wholly  different  level 

^  "  First  Principles,"  p.  217. 


240  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

than  that  from  which  you  reason,  and  animated  by- 
principles  and  forces  in  the  boldest  contrast  to 
those  which  you  gratuitously  assume. 

The  whole  false  progress  comes  from  confound- 
ing things  that  differ.  We  believe  that,  clearer 
or  more  obscure,  there  is  a  witness  of  God  in 
every  man,  and  such  revelation  in  nature  that  the 
invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation  of  the 
world,  even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead,  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that 
are  made.^  So  from  time  to  time,  even  amid  the 
dark  of  heathenism,  great  souls  have  reached  out 
to  fragmentary  views  and  ideals  that  had  a  certain 
moral  uplifting  for  longer  or  shorter  periods.  All 
these,  however,  whatever  their  arresting  power 
for  a  season,  have  not  hindered  the  collapse  of 
ancient  and  modern  heathenism.  What  we  have 
in  Scripture,  even  in  the  Old  Testament,  given  "  at 
sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners,"  is  on  a  totally 
different  plane. 

As  life  came  in,  to  make  a  new  world  of  veget- 
able and  animal  existences  and  activities,  in  the 
silent  spaces  of  dead  matter ;  as  a  self-conscious 
mind  awoke  in  man,  and  through  intelligence  got 
dominion  over  the  creatures,  that  he  might  turn 
the  properties  of  nature  to  ends  of  physical,  intel- 
lectual, moral,  and  spiritual  culture ;  so,  crowning 
all,  God  who  is  a  Spirit  comes  in  to  make  Himself 

1  Romans  i.  20, 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  241 

known  to  the  intelligences  whom  He  has  made, 
and  to  draw  them  into  free,  conscious,  loving  sub- 
mission to  Himself. 

That  is  the  self-witness  of  Scripture  in  the  Old 
Testament,  as  in  the  New.  It  never  moves  from 
that  ground  of  a  self-revelation  of  God,  demanding 
obedience  as  the  condition  of  all  fellowship  and 
happiness.  It  speaks  from  a  plane  of  its  own  con- 
sistently from  beginning  to  end,  and  it  brings  to 
light  the  peculiar  facts  in  human  life  to  which  it 
makes  appeal  Is  not  that  a  suflSciently  notable 
fact  to  take  account  of,  that  from  the  beginning  of 
recorded  history  to  the  first,  and  possibly  the  second, 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  writings  should 
appear  at  irregular  periods,  and  in  widely  sundered 
ages,  which,  amid  varieties  of  form  and  innumer- 
able minor  diversities,  are  all  written  from  one 
standpoint  (and  that  alone  in  the  world)  of  an 
actual  and  glorious  revelation  by  God  to  Israel.'* 
And  have  we  not  an  advance  even  upon  that 
notable  fact  in  this,  that  when  brought  together 
by  other  men  in  a  late  age  they  cohered,  not 
merely  in  a  unity,  but  in  the  progression  of  a 
Divine  purpose,  from  age  to  age  ? 

From  all  that  we  find  in  lower  fields  then,  we 
should  expect  that  in  a  revelation  occupying  so 
exceptional  and  exalted  a  standpoint  we  should 
have  a  principle  of  development  from  within,  quite 
characteristic   and    peculiar   to    itself.      And,    as 


242  THE  INTEGRITY  OK  SCRIPTURE 

throughout  this  chapter  we  shall  be  cartful  to 
show,  this  is  really  the  case. 

In  last  chapter  we  tried  to  realise  Moses  work- 
ing back  from  the  standpoint  of  Sinai  -into  the 
earlier  history,  and  lifting  into  light  the  prior 
steps  of  God's  manifestation.  We  saw  what  a 
wonderful  fragment  of  history  that  is,  and  how 
fully  the  earliest  portions,  which  might  seem 
farthest  removed  from  actual  proof,  are  supported 
by  documents  recently  discovered,  and  by  universal 
traditions  of  the  human  race. 

But  there  was  one  prime  portion  of  this  nar- 
rative which  we  did  not  touch,  and  which  is  simply 
of  immense  importance  for  the  position  which  we 
have^taken  up.  We  ask  you  to  look  at  the  place 
given  to  the  story  of  the  Fall.  In  our  judgment 
that  is  conclusive  as  to  the  Old  Testament's  being 
a  revelation  moving  out  from  a  Divine  centre 
having  to  do  with  man's  relation  to  the  living  God 
even  from  the  beginning.  Evolution  which  has 
to  do  with  matter  and  force  can  have  no  cog- 
nisance of  such  an  event — ^the  withdrawal  of  a 
free,  self-conscious  spirit  from  the  living  God. 
The  nearest  it  can  reach  is  in  its  doctrines  of 
degeneration  and  reversion  to  type.  The  universal 
traditions  of  the  race  have  their  stories  manifold 
of  the  Fall,  jumbled  up  with  the  other  stories  in 
one  undistinguished  mass. 

But  look  at  the  place  which   the   narrative  of 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY 


M3 


the  Fall  has  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  It  is  the 
pivot  of  the  history  of  humanity.  Does  not  this 
show  that  in  the  dawn  of  human  history  there  was 
the  most  vivid  sense  of  man's  relation  to  God,  and 
of  God's  very  positive  and  declared  revelation  to 
man  ?  Does  not  the  writer,  whom  we  may  fairly 
take  to  be  Moses,  since  the  critical  hypothesis  is 
for  us  discredited,  discover  the  keenest  appreciation 
of  these  facts  ?  Men  were  not,  as  the  development 
theory  would  have  it,  rising  through  the  rudest 
types  of  savage  belief,  but,  as  the  earliest  writings 
of  China  and  India,  Babylon  and  Egypt,  show, 
were  nearer  the  truth  of  God  than  later  ages. 
And  in  this  writing,  which  on  every  ground  takes 
supremacy  of  all  these,  we  go  further  and  see  the 
whole  history  of  man  hingeing  on  his  relation  to 
the  living  God,  and  passing  under  shadow  and 
eclipse  through  disobedience.  That  is  the  majestic 
level  of  this  revelation  at  the  start,  and  it  moves 
on  that  level  to  the  end.  It  is  a  book  which  at 
no  point  touches  the  mere  level  of  human  dis- 
quisitions. It  is  occupied  in  describing  the  activity 
of  God  in  relation  to  that  Fall,  in  order  to  the 
uprise  in  Christ,  with  the  related  human  history 
of  faith  and  unbelief,  of  action  and  reaction. 
Where  were  the  eyes  of  the  critics,  where  were 
their  hearts,  when  they  presumed  to  hack  and  hew 
this  living  Divine  whole  into  fragments  that  might 
be  pieced  into  a  poor  story  of  natural  evolution  ? 


244   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

That  is  the  plane  of  Scripture.  It  pursues  the 
history  of  man  at  this  level.  It  looks  at  every 
fact  in  this  one  steady  light.  Circumstances  are 
of  prime  moment  in  its  view  which  are  of  no 
importance  from  the  standpoint  of  secular  history, 
while  vast  areas  of  secular  history  are  passed  by 
without  a  murmur.  Geologists  tell  us  of  the 
traces  of  a  great  deluge;  they  appreciate  a 
physical  fact.  But  in  the  view  of  Scripture  it 
has  a  separate  meaning — the  salvation  of  the  race 
at  the  cost  of  a  generation  ;  the  blotting  out  of 
those  who,  despite  their  mighty  physical  energies, 
had  forfeited  life  by  having  died  to  the  one 
meaning  and  end  of  life ;  and  the  preservation  of 
one  family  in  whom  the  lamp  of  godly  fear  burned. 
Not  only  did  holiness  and  unspeakable  reverence 
for  the  Divine  reign  in  those  who  could  thus  con- 
ceive of  temporary  or  recent  history,  but  the 
ageless  Spirit  of  Him  with  whom  they  dwelt  must 
have  been  moving  upon  their  spirits,  stirring 
instinctive  convictions  the  full  scope  of  which  they 
could  not  discern,  waking  thoughts  greater  than 
they  knew. 

Let  men  not  theorise  about  revelation  and  bring 
all  sorts  of  outside  learning  to  the  Book  from 
which  to  fashion  forth  an  artificial  theory :  let 
them  read,  let  the  Word  sink  into  their  minds, 
let  the  breath  of  God  in  the  whole  impregnate 
their  spirits;   and   then,  when  they  let   their  in- 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  245 

most  natures  utter  what  they  have  felt,  however 
they  may  express  themselves,  their  judgments 
cannot  be  far  from  what  we  have  described. 
Upon  every  portion  of  these  Scriptures  there  are 
the  hall-mark  and  the  signature  of  God. 

And  as  we  go  on,  the  signs  increase.  In  God's 
advancing  purpose,  great  catastrophes  are  storms 
which  clear  the  air  and  usher  in  the  possibility  of 
better  things.  Now  we  want  you  to  note  one  of 
the  wider  correspondences  of  revelation. 

As  every  great  architect  has  his  traits  recurring 
in  the  most  unexpected  places,  reappearing  at  this 
and  that  far-sundered  point  of  his  structure,  so 
with  the  Great  Architect.  How  silently  life  moved 
in  on  the  inorganic  world !  By  what  slow  and 
tentative  eiforts  mind  rose  up  and  began  the  sub- 
duing of  the  forces  of  nature,  which  has  gone  to 
such  lengths  to-day !  Remember  also,  to  rise  into 
a  very  different  sphere,  how,  when  in  the  dense 
forest  of  the  pre-Christian  world  only  tokens  were 
heard  of  rotting  and  decay,  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
appeared  to  Zacharias  about  the  time  of  the  evening 
sacrifice — the  first  velvet  footfall  of  the  new  era  of 
redemption. 

In  strictest  consonance  with  all  this,  the  note 
of  a  new  beginning  broke  upon  Abram  in  Haran. 
In  proceeding  along  this  line,  we  are  perfectly  con- 
scious of  what  many  will  say.  They  have  been  going 
on  the  huge,  unjustifiable  assumption  that  only  hard 


246  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

*  material  facts  and  forces  can  be  counted  scientific. 
But  that  is  becoming  out-of-date.  The  spiritual 
is  real — there  is  no  getting  rid  of  that.  As  truly 
as  there  is  a  region  of  man  which  fronts  the 
external  world,  viz.,  the  five  senses,  there  is 
another  region  which  fronts  God,  which  can  enter 
into  converse  with  God,  derive  personal  qualities 
therefrom  which  can  nowhere  else  be  found,  and 
produce  social  and  political  effects  on  the  world 
indisputable.  We  are  not  going  to  allow  this 
presumption  any  more.  Of  course,  we  are  not 
going  to  take  every  vagrant  dream  or  outflow  of 
feeling  as  a  manifestation  of  the  spiritual.  We 
must  have  tests  for  spiritual  as  for  physical  facts. 
But  when  these  are  applied,  the  workings  of 
spiritual  laws  and  forces  are  to  be  allowed  for 
like  any  other. 

To  return.  In  strict  consonance  with  the 
Divine  method  in  all  other  cases,  the  note  of  a 
new  beginning  broke  upon  Abram  at  Haran  : 
^'  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country  ...  to  a  land  that 
I  will  show  thee."  The  higher  criticism  is  a  de- 
stroyer of  personalities.  They  have  pulverised  the 
most  outstanding  individualities  of  sacred  history. 
He  in  whose  hands  our  hopes  are,  however,  loves 
the  individual,  selects  the  individual,  plants  His 
seed-thought  slowly  to  germinate  in  a  human 
nature,  amid  the  actions  and  reactions  of  a  great 
soul,  fosters  and  directs  the  dawning  resolve,  until 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  247 

the  solitary  becomes  the  man  of  destiny,  and  the 
world  rings  with  his  name. 

In  form  even,  the  story  of  Abram  has  the 
stamp  of  truth.  Thus  by  movements  on  the 
minds  of  individuals  has  God  inaugurated  all 
great  spiritual  beginnings.  And  the  contents 
confirm  the  impression.  This  is  not  the  kind  of 
story  that  a  poet  or  novelist,  working  up  a  myth 
into  a  personal  history,  could  ever  have  written. 
What  we  have  shown  to  be  the  distinguishing 
spirit  of  Scripture  permeates  warp  and  woof. 
Every  incident  save  a  few  human  reactions  moves 
out  from  the  centre  of  the  Divine  Will,  and  is 
touched  by  the  ordering  Spirit  of  God  in  every 
line.  This  is  a  story  which  has  awakened  a 
response  in  spiritual  natures  in  every  generation 
since,  and  which  by  accuracy  and  depth  of  insight 
has  instructed  innumerable  millions  from  age  to 
age.  Spiritual  mtthods  are  discovered  there,  laws 
and  processes  of  the  life  with  God  are  outlined 
in  that  old  story,  rooted  to  begin  with  in  a  material 
promise,  but  widening  and  heightening  under 
Divine  discipline,  till  at  last  around  the  altar  of 
sacrifice  something  of  God's  purpose  in  Christ 
glimmered  before  the  patriarch  in  that  far-off  time. 

This,  it  would  seem,  is  the  kind  of  story  which 
any  vagrant  imagination  could  put  together  out  of 
facts  and  myths !  It  v/ill  be  to  the  undying  dis- 
credit  of  the  higher  criticism  that  ever  it  could 


248  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

have  thought  so.  Critics  have  taken  a  totally- 
inadequate  view  of  the  distinguishing  glory  of  the 
spiritual.  Because,  when  God  has  made  Himself 
known  in  His  Son,  the  spiritual  can  work  power- 
fully in  very  common  persons,  ambitious  scholars 
thirsting  for  reputation  look  down  upon  it  as 
ordinary  and  undistinguished,  whose  existence  in 
any  age  may  be  supposed  without  explanation, 
or  denied  without  questioning,  whenever  it  suits 
an  intellectual  theory.  But  they  are  on  far  holier 
ground  than  they  know.  The  spiritual,  as  we 
have  it  in  Scripture,  has  never  dawned  in  any 
heart  save  by  the  direct  action  of  God.  The  very 
existence  of  the  spiritual  as  a  force  in  human  Kfe, 
is  an  indication  that  God  has  come  into  contact 
with  humanity  in  some  declaration  of  His  will, 
and  that  that  life  has  responded  to  the  will  of 
God.  The  story  of  Abraham — and  the  same  is 
true  of  the  other  patriarchs — is  on  the  very  level 
which  we  have  found  to  mark  out  revelation  from 
the  beginning. 

II.  Thus  we  have  pointed  out  the  distinguishing 
level  and  quality  of  revelation.  Let  us  now  point 
out  its  law  of  progress. 

Having  in  the  course  of  these  chapters  moved 
around  and  constantly  returned  to  the  Mosaic 
Age  and  the  creative  beginning  associated  there- 
with, we  shall  assume  what  has  already  been  laid 
down,    and    go    on    to    show,    in    contrast  to  the 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  249 

artificial  hypothesis  which  we  have  dismissed, 
the  true  principle  of  progression  manifest  in  the 
history  of  Israel.  So  far  from  being  mechani- 
cal, so  far  from  yielding  to  the  superior  merit  of 
the  critical  hypothesis,  to  everyone  who  has  any 
spiritual  perception  it  is  immeasurably  superior, 
introducing  no  unknown  and  highly  doubtful  ele- 
ments, true  to  spiritual  law  and  individual  experi- 
ence, and  such  as  has  appealed  even  to  the  common 
conscience  in  all  ages. 

The  shadow  of  the  Fall  Hes  along  Old  Testa- 
ment Scripture.  God  is  coming  forth  to  deal  in 
His  own  love  and  grace  with  His  people.  He 
sovereignly  chose  them.  He  admitted  them  into 
covenant  with  Himself.  This  was  of  sheer  love 
and  grace,  despite  their  unworthiness.  And  having 
bound  them  by  love,  and  thrilled  them  by  over- 
whelming manifestations  of  Himself,  He  sought  at 
Sinai  to  place  them  under  a  discipline  by  which 
they  might  be  brought  into  fellowship.  Now, 
after  the  efforts  of  a  hundred  years  to  break  up 
the  legislation  of  the  Pentateuchal  books,  and 
represent  it  as  a  late  collection  of  oral  laws,  we 
wish  to  utter  what  is  not  a  mere  private  opinion, 
but  the  settled  conviction  of  a  great  host,  that  the 
unity  of  this  legislation  and  its  immediate  relation 
to  the  theophany  at  Sinai,  as  the  occasion  of  its 
promulgation,  are  more  than  ever  apparent. 

Take  the  hving  centre  of  that  legislation  in  the 


2SO  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Decalogue.  As  the  rays  falling  on  and  reflected 
from  the  earth  are  to  the  sun,  being  emanations 
and  expressions  of  the  central  orb,  the  Decalogue 
is  the  impact  and  application  to  human  relations 
of  this  holy,  searching,  loving  revelation.  Every 
word  goes  like  a  divine  throb  into  the  heart  of 
the  then  existing  situation.  So  far  from  belonging, 
as  Wellhausen  thinks,  to  a  later  age,  the  Com- 
mandments never  could  have  been  uttered  with  a 
tithe  of  their  appropriateness  at  any  other  time. 
Think  of  the  Jewish  people  come  out  of  Egypt 
from  the  polytheism  and  military  absolutism  of 
that  land,  their  fetters  broken,  and  standing  in 
God's  free  air  under  the  mountain  peaks  of  Sinai. 
The  first  word  is  a  ring  fence  round  the  covenant 
nation:  "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before 
Me."  The  second  word  reaches  further,  and 
separates  the  very  soul  of  heathen  worship  from 
that  of  the  only  True.  The  heathen  gods  were 
projections  of  the  Egyptians'  own  minds,  which 
they  tried  to  image  forth  in  their  own  fashion. 
But  the  Great  Jehovah  had  come  forth  to  them  to 
reveal  Himself  to  and  in  them.  So  all  imagin- 
ings of  their  own  were  to  be  far  removed  :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image  " — 
think  of  the  cat-gods,  the  hawk-gods,  the  bull- 
gods — "  or  any  likeness  of  any  thing  that  is  in 
heaven  above,  or  in  the  earth  beneath." 

Need  we  go  further  to  show  how  occasion  and 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  251 

law  fit  into  each  other  ?  But  let  us  run  rapidly 
through  them.  The  gods  which  men  make  they 
can  abuse.  Travellers  in  Egypt  can  discern  that 
the  gods  are  pale  shadows  beside  the  human 
personalities.  But  the  living  Eternal  One  had 
come  forth  to  Israel,  had  chosen  them  for  Him- 
self, and  unspeakable  reverence  must  fill  their 
souls  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  Jehovah 
thy  God  in  vain." 

But  not  now  for  the  first  time  had  this  holy, 
solitary  Lord  God  been  manifested.  He  had  given 
man  the  Sabbath  at  creation,  and  it  had  lived  as 
a  tradition  among  themselves.  Coming  now  into 
clearer  and  more  positive  relations,  He  re-affirms 
this  old  ordinance,  and  gives  it  a  place  among  the 
conditions  of  His  covenant  with  them  :  "  Remember 
the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  it  holy."  Does  not  the 
reader  feel,  as  we  go  on,  that  the  horizons  of  Sinai 
are  round  these  transactions  ? 

Higher  laws  and  relations  do  not  supersede 
lower;  they  exalt  them,  and  surround  them  with 
new  sanctions.  The  race  was  rooted  in  a  family, 
the  kingdom  sprang  from  a  family,  and  for  the 
kingdom's  sake  the  special  sanctions  of  God  sur- 
rounded the  family :  ''  Honour  thy  father  and  thy 
mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee." 

Then,  since  they  were  sons  of  the  kingdom,  Hfe 
was  doubly  precious :  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill." 


252  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Next  in  sacredness  to  life  was  life's  central 
relation :   "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery." 

Then  only  was  account  taken  of  man's  posses- 
sions. As  necessary  for  the  fulfilling  of  God's 
will  they  were  to  be  regarded  as  sacred:  "Thou 
shalt  not  steal." 

But  in  a  chosen  people,  witnesses  for  God  before 
the  world,  there  was  something  else  of  great 
preciousness — their  good  name.  The  sanction  of 
God  went  round  that  also:  "Thou  shalt  not  bear 
false  witness  against  they  neighbour." 

And  now,  crowning  all,  comes  a  command  truly 
remarkable.  We  cannot  conceive  of  its  being 
placed  in  the  Decalogue  except  on  the  under- 
standing of  their  being  under  an  overwhelming 
sense  of  God  as  at  Sinai.  They  were  His,  to 
stand  in  their  lot  and  to  live  their  lives  in  relation 
to  Him.  They  must  not  go  hankering  after  things 
which  He  had  not  appointed  them,  for  that  would 
mean  the  annihilation  of  the  covenant  so  far  as 
they  were  concerned :   "Thou  shalt  not  covet." 

Surely  the  relations  between  the  creative  move- 
ment and  these  creative  words  are  very  close. 
But  it  may  be  well  to  travel  further,  and  show 
in  relation  to  the  legislation  of  Leviticus  how  it 
also  fits  in  to  the  revelation  of  Sinai.  According 
to  the  critical  view,  this  book  as  it  stands  is  a  late 
product  of  the  period  ushering  in  and  including 
the  Exile.     A  series  of  sacrifices  and  ritual  obser- 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  253 

varices  which  had  gradually  grown  up  in  Israel  are 
gathered  up,  wrought  into  a  system,  and  informed 
with  a  loftier  ethical  spirit. 

But  the  more  we  examine  the  book,  in  detail 
and  in  the  whole,  the  more  impossible  seems  this 
solution.  Every  fragment  is  permeated  by  a  spirit 
wholly  separate  and  distinct  from  rituals  framed 
by  priestly  schools.  The  book  is  on  a  different 
plane.  There  is  an  awful  sense  of  God,  and  of 
the  reality  of  sin.  Even  the  priests  who  stood 
between  men  and  God  had  themselves  to  be  pre- 
pared for  office  by  sin-offering  and  burnt-offering. 
Each  individual  sacrifice  in  its  place,  and  the  whole 
system  of  sacrifice  crowned  by  the  great  Day  of 
Atonement,  betray  such  a  sense  of  the  holiness  of 
Jehovah  and  of  the  need  of  complete  separation 
from  sin  as  could  never  have  sprung  up  in  the 
practice  of  a  heathen  people,  or  have  been  put 
together  by  human  genius,  however  great,  im- 
pelled by  mere  patriot  instinct  to  glorify  the 
beginnings  of  his  race. 

This  book  stands  on  the  same  superhuman  level 
as  the  story  of  the  Fall,  and  indeed  the  previous 
books.  We  are  not  on  the  heathen  level  of 
imagined  Deities,  and  man-devised  ritual.  God 
Himself  has  at  last  come  forth  to  bring  estranged 
man  into  relation  to  Himself.  And  in  this  book 
we  have  the  sacrificial  and  ritual  discipline  through 
which  Israel,    despite   unworthiness,   might   come 


254  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

into  and  maintain  covenant  relations  with  the  living 
God.  This  is  not  the  work  even  of  Moses,  but 
of  God.  In  those  long  communions  on  Sinai,  he 
entered  into  the  Divine  thought,  and  brought 
down  a  book  level  to  the  simple  and  barbarous 
conditions  of  the  people,  but  instinct  with  a  Divine 
presence  which  none  but  God  could  impart. 

When  we  study  this  book  from  the  standpoint 
of  Sinai,  and  consider  it  as  imposed  upon  a  people 
in  the  first  stages  of  moral  and  spiritual  education, 
we  are  moved  to  say,  ''  How  dreadful  is  this 
place !  This  is  none  other  but  the  house  of  God, 
and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven."^  The  covenant 
which  God  made  with  Israel  at  Sinai  breathes 
through  the  book.  These  are  the  sacrifices  by 
which  they  may  come  into  His  presence.  Thus 
may  they  live  acceptably  before  Him.  In  the 
first  sixteen  chapters  we  read  how  Israel  may 
enter  into  fellowship.  That  this  was  designed 
to  be  very  real  and  thorough,  we  learn  on  every 
page.  The  tracking  of  sin  into  every  secret 
crevice,  discovered  in  the  first  seven  chapters, 
shows  that  in  all  ages  God  has  been  ever  the 
same.  In  that  early  day,  and  under  a  system 
of  symbols.  He  desired  truth  in  the  inward  part 
even  as  in  the  full  light  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
Then  all  approach  was  to  be  through  a  way  of 
His  own  appointment,   by  those  whom  He  had 

1  Genesis  xxviii.  17. 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  255 

chosen  and  set  apart  as  He  ordained.  To  enjoy 
this  they  must  be  clean  in  their  eating,  in  their 
family  life,  in  the  congregation,  because  God  had 
chosen  them  for  Himself  And  lest  even  with  all 
this  holy  separating  discipline,  uncleanness  might 
remain,  on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement  the  high 
priest  offered  sacrifice  for  himself  and  all  the  people. 

Who  could  have  conceived  a  scheme  like  that, 
fitting  in  on  the  one  hand  to  the  Bible  view  of 
man's  fall,  and  on  the  other  to  that  perfect 
teaching  regarding  sin  and  its  sacrifice  to  be 
found  in  the  New  Testament  ? 

And  the  same  deep  sense  of  this  being  the 
thought  and  appointment  of  God  pervades  the 
second  part.  True,  it  descends  into  many 
apparently  trivial  and  even  repulsive  details. 
Manifestly,  the  people  being  dealt  with  are 
rude,  primitive,  impulsive  sons  of  nature,  lacking 
the  smoothing  influences  of  town  or  civilised  life. 
Yet,  as  we  read  commands  about  killing  oxen, 
and  gleaning  vineyards,  and  bearing  grudges,  and 
seeking  after  wizards,  our  spirits  are  touched  with 
an  exceeding  reverence.  If  on  the  one  hand 
God  stoops  to  every  minute  condition  of  their 
lives,  it  is  to  show  that  within  these  they  must 
live  as  unto  Him.  "  Ye  shall  do  My  judgments 
and  keep  Mine  ordinances,  to  walk  therein:  I 
am   the  Lord  your   God."^     "Ye  shall  be   holy 

^  Leviticus  xviii.  4. 


256  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

unto  Me :  for  I  the  Lord  am  holy,  and  have 
severed  you  from  other  people,  that  ye  should 
be  Mine."i 

In  this  spirit  does  the  second  part  deal  with 
personal  holiness,  holiness  in  the  family,  in  social 
relations,  in  the  priesthood,  in  the  feasts,  in  the 
use  of  the  land;  the  blessings  following  thereon, 
and  the  law  regarding  vows  beyond  legal  require- 
ment. If  a  book  could  testify  to  the  conditions 
within  which  it  arose  and  the  historic  source  of 
its  inspiration,  this  book  in  every  detail  and 
general  structure  testifies  to  such  a  day  of  Divine 
revelation  as  Exodus  describes.  The  theophany 
on  Sinai  justifies  the  legislation  ;  the  legislation 
supports  the  creative  character  of  the  Mosaic 
dispensation.  These  correspondences  are  so  in- 
ward and  far-reaching,  and  speak  so  profoundly 
to  what  is  deepest  and  most  unchanging  in  man, 
that  they  are  not  so  easily  set  aside.  What  are 
the  alleged  discrepancies  between  Deuteronomy 
and  the  legislation  in  the  earlier  books,  which 
are  superficial  and  only  assume  importance  from 
the  critical  view,  to  those  central  and  all-embracing 
correspondences  which,  like  the  advancing  arms 
of  an  iron  bridge,  meet  on  a  far  loftier  than 
natural  level — the  very  level  which  revelation 
maintains  from  the  outset  till  now.^* 

III.  The  law  of  progress  in  revelation,  then,  is 

1  Judges  XX.  26. 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  257 

is  a  national  movement  forward  from  a  Divine 
beginning.  Jehovah  sovereignly  brings  Israel 
into  friendship  with  Himself,  discovers  a  gracious 
purpose  in  relation  to  the  nation,  and  invests 
them  with  a  moral  and  sacrificial  discipline  by 
which  they  may  fulfil  His  purpose.  From  this 
creative  centre  begins  a  covenant  history,  in 
constant  contact  with  God;  unless  in  so  far  as 
they  sin  His  grace  and  favour  away,  when  they 
sink  to  the  natural  level  and  display  the  reactions 
of  the  flesh. 

Now,  if  the  reader  reflects,  he  will  see  that 
with  such  exceptional  conditions  we  cannot  have 
an  ordinary  natural  development.  But  we  have  a 
development  so  original,  characteristic,  and  typical 
of  all  progress  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual,  that 
it  stands  forth  real,  incontestable  fact  in  the 
vividness  of  its  own  presentation.  Not  a  man 
in  Israel  would  have  dared,  not  the  greatest 
genius  the  world  has  ever  known  would  have 
had  the  ethical  insight,  to  conceive  the  hghts 
and  shadows  of  this  onward  progress.  This  is 
the  finger  of  God,  the  searching  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  the  work  of  Him  Whose  name  is  '*!  am 
that  I  am,"  who  was  discovering  in  all  His  actions 
to  His  people,  what  He  is  in  Himself. 

Let  us  move  on  these  lines  of  advance  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  The  reader  will  have  noticed  that 
we  have  never  once  employed  the  term  Hexateuch. 


258  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

That  is  a  modern  coinage,  unsupported  by  tradition, 
and  with  only  a  theoretical  justification.  The 
grouping  handed  down  from  antiquity  is  not 
six-fold  but  five-fold, — the  Pentateuch, — while 
"  Joshua "  is  joined  to  the  books  that  follow ; 
and  if  one  can  only  get  delivered  from  the 
glamour  of  the  critical  movement,  this  arrange- 
ment will  seem  self-evident.  The  Pentateuch  is 
the  narrative  of  the  Divine  self-communication, 
where  with  a  God-like  breadth,  against  the  back- 
ground of  earlier  Divine  manifestations,  the  lines 
are  laid  of  a  whole  economy  or  dispensation. 
This  Divine  programme  needs  no  other  fence  than 
its  own  sublimity.  ''Joshua"  is  an  effect,  a  detail, 
the  story  of  the  Old  Testament  Bayard,  "  without 
fear  and  without  reproach,"  securing  the  fulfilment 
of  one  covenant  promise.  The  inspiration  of  the 
book,  called  by  his  name,  is  the  covenant  history 
which  went  before.  It  is  so  interlocked  with  the 
Pentateuch,  refers  so  continually  to  Moses,  his 
personality,  his  commands,  and  ordinances,  contains 
allusions  so  unmistakable  to  all  parts  of  the  legisla- 
tion, recites  in  such  detail  the  earlier  history, 
renews  so  impressively  the  covenant  with  God  in 
the  passover  at  the  Jordan  valley,  and  in  the 
reading  and  recording  of  the  law  at  Shechem,  that 
you  can  only  get  rid  of  the  testimony  to  the 
preceding  books  by  pulverising  them  both. 

If  we  take  the  Pentateuch  in  its  true  character 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  259 

one  could  not  conceive  a  more  fitting  sequel  than 
this  book  of  Joshua.  Signs  of  reversion  are  not 
wanting.  Joshua's  ominous  fears  of  what  the 
future  may  bring  are  significant  of  what  he  has 
seen  in  the  people's  spirit  and  temper.  They  are 
held  in  check,  however,  by  a  blameless  personality, 
in  whom  were  perpetuated  much  of  the  vision, 
faith,  and  self-sacrifice  of  Moses,  and,  with  warlike 
gifts  of  his  own,  superb  loyalty  to  his  master's 
ideals.  The  stirring  work  of  conquest,  too, 
especially  when  informed  by  the  lofty  consecra- 
tion of  their  leader  and  the  powerful  presence  of 
God,  had  a  lifting  and  sustaining  influence  of 
its  own.  That  vanished,  however,  they  fell  back 
into  heathen  practices  and  forsook  the  Lord  God 
of  their  fathers.  And  in  that  wild  reversion  to 
idolatry  in  which  they  served  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth, 
the  whole  moral  and  ceremonial  system  of  Sinai, 
which  only  had  meaning  and  validity  for  those 
who  realised  their  covenant  with  God,  sank  for  a 
time  out  of  sight. 

We  cannot  follow  the  critics  into  all  their 
misconceptions  here.  They  cannot  away  with 
the  idea  that  this  was  a  fall  from  a  loftier  height. 
No,  this  was  the  real  savage  condition  from  which 
Israel  slowly  emerged.  We  frankly  admit  that  at 
this  period  there  seemed  at  times  little  to  choose  be- 
tween Israel  and  surrounding  nations.  The  critical 
theory  certainly  explains   the   barbarism   and  the 


26o  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

savagery.  But  that  does  not  amount  to  much.  As 
men  are  in  this  world,  it  is  the  easiest  of  all  easy- 
things  for  a  people  to  run  down  hill.  Every  age 
to  our  own  has  had  proof,  sad  enough,  of  reversion 
to  brutality — horrid  cruelty.  The  difficult  things 
to  account  for  are  the  steps  upward  from  that 
degenerate  condition.  These  never  come  of 
themselves,  without  an  adequate  lifting  force. 
Now  here  the  critical  theory  entirely  fails.  If 
Israel  was  on  the  level  of  surrounding  heathen 
nations,  whence  came  the  regenerative  forces 
unknown  among  all  other  peoples?  These  are 
the  features  to  be  explained.  Whence  the 
/stirrings  of  an  exceptional  reverence  for  the 
unseen  God?  Whence  the  mighty  uprising  of 
faith  in  His  presence  and  power, — men  and 
women  like  Gideon  and  Deborah  attaining  to 
a  moral  stature  unknown  outside  of  Israel,  and 
akin  to  that  of  Moses,  Joshua,  and  the  patriarchs 
of  old?  How  happened  it  that  the  multitudes 
who  had  sunk  back  to  heathen  levels  recollected 
themselves,  and  rose  up  into  some  measure  of 
vision,  faith,  and  power,  which  made  them  re- 
sistless over  those  who  had  crushed  them,  while 
the  spell  of  their  leader  continued  ? 

There  is  no  explanation  save  one — their 
peculiar  past.  They  had  inherited  traditions ; 
they,  as  their  fathers,  had  gone  through  ex- 
periences which,  whether  individually  they  heard 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY   261 

or  forebore,  had  burned  into  their  souls.  They 
could  not  divest  themselves  of  their  unique 
destiny  or  of  their  covenant  relations  and  promise. 
What  if  it  was  of  God,  to  permit  the  covenant 
transaction  of  Sinai  to  get  overlaid  and  buried 
almost  out  of  sight,  by  the  temporary  resurgence 
of  every  instinct  and  tendency  of  depraved  human 
nature,  to  1^  it  be  seen  that  everything  was  to  be 
of  Him,  and  nothing  at  all  of  man  ?  That  they 
should  fall  back  to  half-heathen  conceptions  of 
worship  is  not  wonderful.  But  the  wonderful  cir- 
cumstances, needing  exceptional  causes  to  account 
for  them,  were  these,  that  life  and  faith  and  the 
power  of  recuperation  survived,  that  by  successive 
steps  the  people  reasserted  their  faith  in  God,  that 
out  of  utter  eclipse  the  consciousness  of  being  the 
covenant  people  of  God  grew  up  spontaneously 
in  Israel,  and  that  they  moved  on  by  slow  stages 
to  the  realisation,  step  by  step,  of  the  covenant 
nation,  the  theocratic  king,  and  finally  the  divinely- 
appointed  worship. 

Compared  with  such  a  history  as  that,  so  real, 
so  level  to  human  experience,  so  instinct  with 
the  frailty  and  sin  of  men,  and  the  overcoming 
grace  of  God,  all  the  criticisms  of  our  opponents 
are  external  and  poor.  Their  theory  of  history 
is  mechanical  in  the  highest  degree.  When 
institutions  are  set  up  they  should,  irrespective 
of  circumstances,  start  right  away.     Critics  do  not 


262  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

take  account  of  the  outstanding  facts,  the  uni- 
versal heathen  environment  in  other  nations,  the 
magnificence  of  God's  claim,  the  height  of  His 
requirements,  the  possibiUties  of  reaction  pro- 
portionate to  that  height.  Why,  the  very  cir- 
cumstances to  which  they  point,  as  proof  posi- 
tive of  the  impossibility  of  the  traditional  view, 
are  the  chief  signs  that  the  historical  books  from 
Joshua  to  Samuel  are  on  the  same  spiritual  level 
with  the  earlier  books,  and  are  inspired  with  the 
same  superhuman  aim  and  breath  of  revelation. 
Man  has  fallen  and  God  has  discovered  Himself, 
that  from  all  wandering  He  might  bring  the  people 
back  to  Himself.  That  man  in  his  rebellion 
should  make  havoc  of  God's  gracious  provisions  is 
nothing  wonderful.  But  that,  despite  all,  God 
should  root  Himself  in  His  fickle  people,  and  lead 
them  on  so  far  to  the  realisation  of  His  ideal, 
that  is  the  marvel  which  makes  this  Book  in  every 
part,  histories  no  less  than  prophecies,  stand  alone 
in  the  world. 

IV.  We  come  now  to  a  most  significant  section, 
the  frustration  of  the  simply  national  ideal.  True, 
to  those  like  ourselves  who  can  look  back  on  this 
era  from  the  standpoint  of  the  completed  history, 
it  is  possible  to  discern  beneath  the  surface  of 
very  real  present  failure,  in  the  disruption  of  the 
kingdom  and  consequent  decay,  the  setting  of  a 
great  new  current  of  Divine  purpose,  which  none 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  263 

of  those  who  lived  through  the  era  could  discern. 
Just  as  through  the  bare  branches  of  the  trees 
in  winter  we  can  catch  far  glimpses  that  were  hid 
all  summer  through  by  the  leafy  screen,  so  in  the 
withering  and  breaking  up  of  the  first  partial 
fulfilment  of  promise  in  the  Davidic  kingdom  can 
we  see  new  reaches  of  Divine  design.  Failure 
and  disintegration  are  the  occasions  of  bringing 
into  view  an  ineffably  larger  hope,  in  which  God 
is  seen  sublimely  working  on  the  lines  which  He 
had  laid  down  from  the  beginning. 

It  will  be  quite  impossible  to  follow  the  history 
of  rupture  and  collapse,  till  Israel  is  carried  captive, 
and  then  at  long  last,  Judah  is  crushed,  her  people 
deported,  her  temple  destroyed.  And  in  pursuing 
details  we  might  lose  the  principle  of  progression. 
All  through  this  era  of  disintegration  and  decay 
the  purpose  of  God  was  going  on,  because  we 
find  not  only  select  souls,  but  the  people  to  whom 
they  spoke,  re-emerging  in  the  prophetic  era  on  a 
loftier  plane  of  vision. 

We  select  then  one  episode,  the  life  of  Solomon, 
in  whom  the  nation  reached  its  crown,  and  by 
whom  it  was  led  down  towards  rupture  and  subse- 
quent ruin.  Here  we  shall  see,  on  a  great  scale, 
how  God's  purpose  goes  on  through  ages  of  decay, 
as  through  ages  of  fulfilment,  despite  failure  and 
relapse,  as  well  as  through  faith  and  sacrifice, 
how  His   thoughts  are  orbing,  some  glimpses  of 


264  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

His  will  are  entering  into  human  minds  amid  con- 
flicts and  baffling  mysteries,  no  less  than  in  the 
sunshine  of  His  love.  In  all,  He  is  above  those 
vi^ith  whom  He  fulfils  His  designs,  working  to 
ends  of  which  they  little  dream. 

As  we  have  already  hinted,  the  higher  criticism 
has  been  a  ruthless  wrecker  of  the  outstanding 
personalities  of  Israel,  by  whose  distinctive  im- 
press Scripture  has  chiefly  lived  in  the  thought 
and  reverence  of  the  great  masses  of  men.  Abra- 
ham, Jacob,  Moses,  David,  Solomon,  Isaiah,  Daniel 
— these  have  a  more  commanding  place  among  the 
worthies  of  the  human  race  than  any  classical 
heroes.  Yet  all  of  them  have  been  either  dis- 
solved into  myths,  or  so  shrunken  and  diminished 
as  to  be  indiscernible.  Of  none  of  them  is  this 
truer  than  of  the  magnificent  personality  of 
Solomon.  By  his  errors  no  less  than  by  his 
excellencies,  as  summing  up  the  past  and  pre- 
paring for  the  disintegration  of  the  future,  he 
occupies  a  place  of  singular  interest  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  God's  purpose  as  we  have  it  in,  the  Old 
Testament.  In  opening  this,  however  slightly, 
we  shall  see  the  immeasurable  superiority,  in  in- 
sight, originality  of  conception,  and  truth  to  fact, 
of  the  traditional  to  the  critical  view. 

Of  such  an  era  as  that  stretching  from  Sinai  to 
Zion,  from  Moses  to  David,  with  its  immense 
crises,  dark  and  bright,  subjecting  to  the  severest 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  265 

strain  every  passion  and  aspiration  of  the  soul, 
there  must  have  been  further  literary  expression 
than  the  song  of  Deborah  and  the  dirges  for  Saul 
and  Abner.  The  fact  that  there  were  these  raises 
the  strongest  presumption  that  there  were  more. 
And,  the  critical  hypothesis  discredited,  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  not  accept  the  testimony 
of  tradition  with  regard  to  the  existence  of  Davidic 
psalms.  Sages  too  fertilised  in  spirit  by  the  moral 
discipline  of  law  and  sacrifice  would  be  striking 
out  in  proverb  or  aphorism  their  judgments  of 
conduct  and  maxims  of  prudence.  Stirred  in  their 
whole  being, — intellect  as  well  as  heart, — Jothams 
would  be  finding  delight  in  imaginative  creation, 
and  huge  Samsons  in  intellectual  puzzles.  In  a 
word,  as  in  every  instance  known  to  us  through 
succeeding  ages,  religious  upheaval  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  intellectual  illumination,  so  must  it  have 
been  away  back  at  the  beginning  in  Israel. 

And  thus  the  fitting  culmination  and  crown  of 
this  age  was  a  many-sided  genius  like  Solomon, 
gathering  up  and  bringing  to  full  utterance,  all  the 
strivings  in  the  nation  through  the  past,  crystallis- 
ing their  ethical  wisdom,  the  lyrical  joy  of  faith, 
delight  in  the  work  of  God's  hands  ;  and  able  to 
express,  too,  in  organisation  and  edifices  their 
utmost*  ideas  of  a  theocratic  kingdom. 

But  in  this  imperfect  state  of  being,  to  have 
realised  an  ideal  means  readiness  to  go  beyond  it. 


266  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

And  even  through  his  failures  and  errors  Solomon 
helped  towards  that.  With  all  his  magnificent 
qualities,  Solomon  was  not  a  hero  of  faith  like 
David.  He  asked  God  for  the  gift  of  wisdom 
that  he  might  rightly  administer  the  kingdom. 
But  when,  later,  God  demanded  from  him  full 
surrender,  to  be  His  hand  and  instrument  as  David 
was,^  Solomon  was  dumb.  He  would  not  "walk 
before  God  "  to  do  according  to  all  His  commands, 
but  must  guide  so  far  his  own  course.  His  large- 
ness of  sympathy  brought  him  into  affinity  with 
the  heathen  nations,  his  breadth  of  wisdom,  dis- 
cerning "the  soul  of  good  in  things  evil,"  led  him 
to  join  heathen  worships  to  the  worship  of  God. 
And  so  he  went  plunging  down,  as  so  many 
brilliant  intellects  have  done,  which  have  refused 
submission  to  God.  As  soon  as  the  breath  was 
out  of  his  body  the  kingdom  was  broken  in  twain, 
and  in  both  the  down  grade  began. 

Will  it  be  counted  unpardonable  if,  without 
presuming  to  forestall  sound  criticism,  we  suggest 
that  very  much  more  has  to  be  said  for  the  tradi- 
tional view  of  the  books  associated  with  Solomon's 
name,  than  has  for  many  years  been  allowed  ?  We 
have  no  right  to  assert,  but  any  one  may  put  in  a 
caveat  in  arrest  of  judgment.  Under  the  fascina- 
tion of  a  baseless  theory,  it  has  seemed  a  wise 
thing  to  carry  down  a  book  like  Ecclesiastes  to  a 

1  See  I  Kings  ix.  4. 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY   ^6^ 

date  when  similar  speculations  were  known  outside  ; 
to  allow  in  the  Song  of  Solomon  nothing  but  what 
appears  on  the  surface,  and  account  it  a  story  or 
drama  of  natural  love;  and  to  describe  the 
Proverbs  as  a  collection  gradually  formed  and 
issued  late.  The  conception  of  a  natural  develop- 
ment in  Israel,  not  fundamentally  dissimilar  from 
that  of  other  nations,  has  been  a  determining 
element  in  all  these  conclusions. 

If  we  accept  the  self-witness  of  revelation,  how- 
ever, if  we  grant  the  true  order  and  progression 
to  be  as  we  have  described — inward,  spiritual, 
dynamical,  according  to  the  guiding  of  a  Divine 
hand — a  new  set  of  considerations  comes  into  play. 
We  recover  these  books  in  whole  or  in  part  for 
the  illustration  of  this  sublime  personality,  and, 
more,  as  having  their  place  in  the  unfolding  of 
God's  purpose  in  revelation.  The  effect  is  like 
what  happens  to  an  architect,  when,  removing  a 
coat  of  whitewash, — he  recovers  an  ancient  fresco, 
some  portrait  of  Dante,  some  masterpiece  of  Giotto 
or  Orcagna.  What  are  the  surface  theorisings  of 
the  critics  to  the  lighting  up  of  the  sombre  tragedy 
of  an  imperial  soul,  like  that  of  Solomon,  held  but 
wandering,  marvellously  responsive  to  the  spiritual 
while  succumbing  to  the  flesh,  never  cast  off  but 
permitted,  on  account  of  disobedience,  to  sail  round 
every  dark  coast  of  doubt  and  despair  ? 

Without  denying  that  there  may  be  other  collec- 


268  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

tions  in  Proverbs,  we  must  not  overlook  one  of 
the  most  significant  writings  of  Scripture  —  the 
portraiture  of  Wisdom.  Here  we  have  the  Hebrew 
genius  arrived  at  the  stage  of  self-reflection,  realis- 
ing what  the  presence  of  a  covenant  God  in  Israel 
meant.  And  everything  seems  to  suit  Solomon — 
the  wide  horizon,  including  nature  and  human 
life,  the  importance  given  to  knowledge,  and  even 
the  partial  detachment  of  his  life,  illumined  by- 
God,  yet  not  fully  surrendered  to  Him.  To  his 
imperial  nature,  in  calm  survey,  the  peculiar  near- 
ness of  God  to  His  people,  with  the  quickened 
sense  of  life  and  duty  springing  therefrom,  seems 
to  blend  with  and  interpret  God's  universal  govern- 
ment. The  soul  of  things,  the  informing  wisdom 
animating  all,  seems  to  stand  forth  less  like  an 
attribute  than  like  a  person  with  whom  Jehovah 
held  converse.  The  thought  of  God  in  revelation 
is  opening  out  toward  the  larger  conception, 
Trinity  in  unity,  that  was  to  come.  Jehovah  is 
becoming  self-revealed  in  His  own  work. 

Surely  we  have  here  a  proof  of  a  superhuman 
overruling  mind  in  Scripture — God  moving  forward 
through  long  centuries,  not  only  in  the  evolution 
of  His  purpose  of  grace,  but  in  the  broadening 
vision  of  Himself  caught  by  select  spirits  of  the  race. 

If  you  allow  me  to  pause  and  step  aside  for  a 
moment  from  the  course  of  my  exposition,  this 
enriched  vision  of  God  on  the  intellectual  side  is 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  269 

balanced  by  another  in  the  region  of  personal 
spiritual  experience.  The  book  of  Job  is  no 
clever  speculation,  but  an  inseparable  part  of  the 
Old  Testament  revelation,  and  the  profoundest 
reflective  utterance  of  the  Hebrew  spirit  in  covenant 
with  God.  Moses  taught  that  obedience  would 
be  crowned  with  God's  favour.  The  narrow 
particularistic  Jewish  spirit  inferred  therefrom, 
that  misfortune  and  suffering  implied  the  anger 
of  God,  and  therefore  the  ill-desert  of  the  sufferer. 
This  typical  Greatheart — for  that  a  personal  ex- 
perience underlies  this  book  is  beyond  question — 
warring  with  an  inadequate  view,  rose  not  by 
argument  but  by  the  waves  of  an  anguished  spirit 
to  a  finer  and  broader  vision.  After  falterings 
and  fears  he  comes  to  see  God,  not  only  as  One 
who  stood  for  His  own  sovereign  claim,  but  as 
having  by  Him  one  who  would  put  Himself  in  the 
place  of  the  creature,  say  everything  for  him  that 
could  be  said,  so  that  even  the  greatest  sufferer 
could  rest  in  confidence  that  right  would  be  done. 
Is  not  this  a  living  literature,  moving  on  under  the 
influence  of  unparalleled  forces  —  the  Self-dis- 
coveries of  God,  the  soaring  faith  and  vision  of 
holy  men? 

To  return,  however,  to  those  books  which 
cluster  around  Solomon^s  name.  The  Song  of 
Solomon  is,  we  are  convinced,  even  yet  an  un- 
solved enigma.      Certainly  the  naturalistic  interpre- 


270  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

tations  have  not  met  the  facts  of  the  case.  There 
is  a  blending  of  opposites  which  they  cannot 
account  for,  the  language  and  images  of  undiluted 
passion,  and  yet  with  these,  stainless  purity.  The 
ancient  instinct  was  right :  we  have  got  some  ideal 
element  here. 

Many  years  ago,  in  reading  the  Vita  Nuova  of 
Dante,  and  entering  into  the  moving  expressions 
of  an  ideal  passion,  the  thought  flashed  on  our 
mind  that  here  lay  some  clue  to  the  origin  of  the 
Song.  Solomon  lived  in  a  love-laden  Oriental 
atmosphere.  He  had  drunk  to  the  full  all  that 
the  pagan  East  had  to  give  in  this  form  of  ravish- 
ment. Sated  and  self-reproachful,  one  can  fancy 
him  turning  back  with  a  great  leap  of  revived  love, 
from  the  neighbouring  empires  with  whose  heathen 
fashions  he  dallied,  to  austere  Judah  and  Israel, 
rude  and  simple  compared  with  these — black  but 
comely.  The  purer  breath  of  their  faith  and 
devotion  braces  him.  At  their  heart  there  is  a 
tenser  love,  a  loftier  passion.  Their  great  past, 
and  the  quenchless  love  of  the  Holy  One  for  His 
chosen,  come  back — the  heroic  days  when  people 
and  Lord  were  knit  into  one.  Here  were  embrace- 
ments,  passion,  the  gloating  of  loving  eyes,  the 
endearments  of  speech  which  did  not  enervate  but 
brace,  cast  down  but  build  up.  And  so  we  have 
on  the  basis  of  past  history,  and  rising  out  of  a 
real  situation  in  the  Hfe  of  Solomon,  the  song  of 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  271 

Messiah  and  His  beloved,  which  Bernard,  and 
Rutherford,  and  the  saints  of  all  past  ages  believed 
it  to  be. 

Sadly  enough,  however,  that  was  but  the  fleet- 
ing inspiration  of  a  day,  and  Solomon  went  plung- 
ing down  into  those  excesses  which,  in  the  language 
of  Burns,  "harden  a'  within,  and  petrify  the  feel- 
ing." And  so,  love  gone,  passion  dead,  disillusion 
come,  and  faith,  if  not  dead,  in  eclipse,  Solomon 
entered  into  the  wilderness  of  desertion  and  doubt, 
to  look  at  the  black  mysteries  of  a  life  without 
God.  Depend  upon  it,  Ecclesiastes  is  no  regular 
treatise — the  work  of  a  professed  penman — but  a 
human  document,  the  soundings  of  a  distraught 
soul — working  up  at  last  to  a  dim,  hard  faith  as 
such  an  one  might  reach.  Held  of  God  in  all  his 
wanderings,  never  forsaken  while  putting  the 
darkest  meanings  on  life,  he  is  seen  reaching  out 
amid  the  ashes  of  disillusion  and  the  gloom  of 
doubt  to  new  accentuations  of  truth — the  strait 
conditions  of  providence  environing  all  life,  man's 
superiority  to  his  environment ;  ''  He  hath  set 
eternity  in  their  heart,"  so  that  gleams  of  the 
illimitable  mingle  with  all  their  seeing,  and  they 
cannot  rest  in  the  present ;  the  wistful  confidence 
in  immortality,  the  certainty  of  personal  judgment. 
Out  of  the  gloom  these  lamps  of  light  break, 
living  and  new,  for  Israel  from  the  fiery  discipline 
of  God. 


272  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Go  back  to  the  beginning,  behold  the  course  of 
this  unapproachable  literature.  On  how  lofty  a 
plane  it  moves  from  first  to  last,  what  a  holy 
searching  spirit  breathes  through  every  Divine 
communication.  And  despite  frailities  and  sins 
innumerable  how  wonderfully  has  the  holy  seed 
become  the  substance  of  a  new  covenant  life, 
rising  into  manifold  expressions  of  the  soul, 
varied  and  sublime,  as  those  which  we  have  de- 
scribed !  What  human  mind  could  have  conceived 
such  a  literature?  What  imagination  could  have 
produced  either  the  individual  parts  or  the  ideal 
combination  of  them?  When  taken  in  the  full 
sense  of  its  own  contents  the  book  is  self-evidently 
from  Him — through  whatever  instruments — from 
Him  whose  entrance  into  human  history  for  pardon 
and  salvation  it  so  wonderfully  describes. 

One  would  desire  to  stop  at  this  point,  and 
resume  in  another  chapter  our  exposition  of  the 
true  order  and  progression  of  Hebrew  history. 
But  on  many  grounds  we  are  compelled  to  gather 
up  into  a  few  closing  sentences  what  remains  of 
that  survey. 

If  j^such  has  been  the  previous  course  of  Old 
Testament  revelations,  if  there  has  been  so  mani- 
fold an  outblossoming  of  Hebrew  thought  and 
feeling  under  the  discipline  of  God,  we  behold 
the  adequate  preparation  for  the  extraordinary 
and  unparalleled  development  of  prophecy.     The 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  2 


7J 


passion  for  their  history,  the  power  of  song,  the 
play  of  imagination,  the  plumbings  of  ethical  and 
spiritual  thought,  the  conflict  with  mysteries, 
manifest  in  preceding  writers,  had  supplied  and 
braced  the  Hebrew  spirit  even  for  so  great  a 
task. 

We  feel  too — all  the  more  vividly  because  of 
the  inadequate  explanation  of  criticism — that  the 
tremendous  contrasts  supplied  by  this  mighty 
presence  of  God  with  His  own,  and  yet  the 
fearful  ever-deepening  declensions  of  Judah  and 
Israel,  supplied  the  situation  out  of  which  pro- 
phecy arose. 

V.  Let  us  look  then  at  The  Prophetic  Renas- 
cence. That  there  was  an  uprise  at  all  from  such 
a  total  collapse,  shows  that  God  had  taken  the 
grasp  of  His  people  which  the  earlier  Scriptures 
describe.  We  are  still  on  the  same  plane  of  man 
fallen,  and  God  coming  in  with  a  purpose  of  de- 
liverance. What  strikes  us  in  all  these  prophets 
is  an  over-mastering  sense  of  God,  which  reduces 
every  other  fact,  even  the  great  world-empires 
rising  upon  their  view,  into  insignificance.  On 
the  level  of  common  human  history  there  has 
never  been  anything  like  this.  Then,  pervading 
their  teaching  is  the  intense  measureless  convic- 
tion of  God's  having  come  into  special  relation  to 
Israel,  having  chosen  them  for  Himself,  and  given 
them  a  promise  of  world  dominion.     All   this  is 


i^\   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

realised  in  faith  as  the  purpose  of  God  going  out 
and  covering  all  time.  Such  is  the  vast  plane  on 
which  they  move. 

True,  they  were  preachers  of  righteousness  in 
their  own  day.  But  they  searched  into  Israel's 
sins  and  read  off  the  unerring  moral  judgments 
following  on  these,  because  they  stood  ever  at 
God's  standpoint,  and  looked  at  everything  in  the 
line  of  His  purpose. 

But  however  priceless  and  imperishable  this 
ethical  side  may  be,  where  God  discovers  for  all 
time  the  unerring  balances  in  which  He  tries 
nations,  the  most  characteristic  elements  are  the 
wonderful  overflowings  of  love  and  grace,  which 
could  only  have  come  from  the  heart  of  the 
eternal  counsel,  through  these  men  wholly  sur- 
rendered to  His  will.  This  is  the  side  least  looked 
at  meantime;  but  beyond  question  prophecy  cul- 
minates in  these,  and  they  burst  to  atoms  the 
strait  limits  which  moderns  allow  to  the  range  of 
prophetic  prevision.  When  God  makes  a  man 
the  channel  of  His  eternal  counsel.  He  speaks 
words  which,  of  course,  have  a  meaning  and  a 
reason  to  the  man  who  utters  them,  but  which 
also  contain  implications  and  expansions  of  signifi- 
cance which  only  after-ages,  coming  into  the 
inheritance  of  the  promise,   can  discern. 

How  those  words  of  God  to  Moses  have  gone 
on  enlarging  their  meaning,  rising  to  loftier  planes 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY  275 

of  significance  as  the  ages  have  rolled  on — '^Ye 
shall  be  a  peculiar  treasure  to  Me  above  all 
people,  for  all  the  earth  is  Mine."^  These  are 
the  limitless  horizons  of  prophecy.  Only  God 
can  in  the  issue  interpret  fully  what  God  has  said. 
Let  us  not  then  presumptuously  close  the  door, 
limiting  Him  who  has  broken  all  limits  in  carrying 
out  His  purpose  of  grace.  Even  to-day  when  we 
recognise  the  wonderful  fulfilment  of  many  pro- 
phetic words,  we  feel  that  the  sketch  of  the 
eternal  purpose  outlined  in  prophetic  words  is 
only   imperfectly  filled  in. 

Their  vision  reaches  forth  to  the  furthest  age. 
Amos  sees  after  long  ages  of  ruin  and  failure  the 
tabernacle  of  David  set  up.  Hosea,  who  so  vividly 
realised  Israel's  whoredom  and  rejection,  beholds 
her  betrothed  again  in  perfect  renewal  of  love. 
Joel  sees  the  kingdom  widening  to  the  bounds  of 
the  world,  quickened  and  united  to  God  by  the 
fulness  of  the  Spirit.  Isaiah  beholds  the  virgin's 
Son,  the  Wonderful,  the  Counsellor,  the  Servant 
of  Jehovah,  the  suffering  Messiah,  who  should 
not  fail  until  He  had  set  judgment  in  the  earth.^ 
Jeremiah,  and  still  more  Ezekiel,  portray  the  new 
covenant  of-  cleansing  and  renewal,  in  which  the 
people  shall  realise  at  last  their  ideal,  and  the  dry 
bones  shall  live.  And  Daniel,  living  amid  heathen 
empires,  sees  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and 

1  Exodus  xix.  5. 


276  THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

the  founding  of  the  Divine  kingdom,  in  relation  to 
the  vast  processions  of  the  pagan  empires:  and, 
in  his  illumined  judgment  of  the  rapid  course  of 
these  decaying  force-empires,  is  led  out  to  hint  a 
time  for  the  great  consummation. 

All  these  are  fragments.  One  utters  one 
thought  and  dies;  another,  in  a  different  age, 
vouchsafes  his  glimpse  and  disappears.  Not  only 
is  there  no  collusion,  or  even  consultation,  but 
these  prophets  were  separated  by  broad  barriers 
of  age  and  conditions.  Yet  they  resolve  into  so 
vast,  many-sided,  and  harmonious  a  unity  of 
Divine  purpose. 

Looking  backwards,  this  historical  miracle — for 
it  is  nothing  less — is  seen  to  be  the  marvellous, 
but  wholly  undreamt-of,  expansion  and  realisation 
of  that  purpose  of  God  which  had  been  at  work 
from  Eden  and  Sinai,  and  all  through  the  centuries 
since ;  Divine  love  coming  in  through  the  very- 
sins  and  rebellion  of  His  people,  and  leading  out 
to  the  full  disclosure  of  His  vast  purpose  of 
grace. 

And  if  there  be  such  correspondences  looking 
up  the  stream  of  time,  what  shall  we  say  when, 
from  the  standpoint  of  prophecy  we  look  forward 
to  the  fulfilment  in  Christ?  All  questions  of 
human  powers  of  forecast,  and  such  like,  are  here 
swept  aside.  We  are  in  presence  of  powers  that 
are  Divine.     Coming  forth  from  the  unseen,  moving 


PROGRESSION  OF  HEBREW  HISTORY   277 

on  his  filial  plane  in  utter  originality  of  method 
and  teaching  especially  as  He  proceeds  to  the 
fulfilment  of  His  mission  in  death,  resurrection, 
ascension,  and  indwelling,  does  our  Lord  discover, 
not  after  an  earthly  fashion,  but  in  a  manner  lofty 
beyond  expression,  the  most  subtle  and  detailed 
correspondences  of  principle  and  provision  with 
the  whole  course  of  past  revelation. 

These  are  realities,  written  so  broad  on  the 
page  of  history  that  while  they  may  be  neglected 
they  cannot  be  set  aside.  Such  harmonies  of  plan 
did  not  arise  by  chance,  such  progressions  of  a 
positive  purpose  through  the  ages  must  have  had 
a  cause;  and  in  the  very  nature  of  things  there 
could  have  been  no  cause  but  the  living  God. 
No  mind  but  His  could  have  seen  from  beginning 
to  end,  could  have  impressed  the  spirit  of  the  end 
on  the  very  beginning,  conld  have  moved  on  the 
theatre  of  nations  working  out  His  designs ;  could, 
despite  unbelief  and  self-will,  have  drawn  human 
spirits  to  receive  and  reach  out  to  express  His 
thoughts,  across  the  breadth  of  centuries  and 
amid  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires ;  could  have 
brought  out  these  correspondences,  like  signs  in 
heaven,  to  show  that  the  Most  High  had  been 
moving  among  the  kingdoms  of  men.  Nothing 
can  explain  such  a  unity  of  Scripture,  such  an 
order  of  parts  and  progression  of  events,  rising 
to  such  a  culmination,  but  one  informing  Divine 


278   THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SCRIPTURE 

presence,  carrying  out  from  beginning  to  end  a 
creative  purpose  of  His  own.  "  It  is  He  that  sitteth 
on  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabitants 
thereof  are  as  grasshoppers." 

If  in  any  degree  we  have  confirmed  this  faith 
in  any  soul,  brought  even  a  few  from  questioning 
to  conviction,  from  theories  of  man  to  the  vision 
of  God,  we  shall  count  the  labour  of  these  past 
months,  and  the  anxieties  and  difficulties  attending 
all  controversy,  well  repaid.  May  God  of  His 
great  goodness  forgive  the  faults  and  the  failings 
of  this  weak  endeavour,  and  accept  this  humble 
service  of  love  and  loyalty  to  His  own  most  holy 
Name ! 


"MODERN  CRITICISM  AND  THE  PREACHING 
OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT" 

We  have  been  asked,  as  a  minister  of  religion,  to  express  our 
conviction  as  to  the  bearing  of  the  Higher  Criticism  on  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Old  Testament.!  This  we  do  reluctantly,  yet  with- 
out any  faltering  of  conviction.  We  believe  that  Dr  George 
Adam  Smith,  and  those  whom  he  represents,  are  forcing  upon 
the  British  Churches  the  gravest  issue  that  any  of  them  has  had 
to  face  in  living  memory.  Indeed,  we  might  go  further  than 
that  without  exaggeration. 

The  thing  which  has  astonished  us  most  in  his  bright  and 
clever  book  is  what  we  have  failed  to  find  there,  any  discussion, 
or  even  mention,  of  the  bearing  of  this  criticism  on  the  Pro- 
testant doctrine  of  the  authority  of  Scripture.  That  lay  abrupt 
and  inevitable  in  his  way.  For  the  question  is  not  whether  out 
of  this  reconstructed  Old  Testament  we  can  get  materials  for 
sermons.  As  authorised  teachers  of  the  Churches,  we  believe 
that  we  have  a  revelation  from  God  of  His  sovereign  purpose 
of  mercy  to  mankind.  In  this  modern  day,  jealous  to  irra- 
tionality of  every  assertion  of  authority,  we  assert  this  stupendous 
claim,  commanding  all  men  everywhere  to  repent.  And  that 
claim  has  been  vindicated  on  two  grounds  :  the  ceaseless  creation 
of  living  Christians,  and  the  broad  base  in  history  on  which 
revelation  rests.  Whatever  undermines  that  historic  base,  then, 
weakens  revelation,  and  takes  something  from  the  authority  with 
which  we  can  speak  in  the  name  of  God  to  men. 

The  question  is,  then.  Does  criticism  sustain,  or  does  it  in  any 
measure  break  down,  the  unity  and  authority  of  revelation  ?  In 
our  view,  it  disintegrates  the  Old  Testament,  and  to  some  extent 
affects  the  credit  of  the  New.     Surely  in  a  religious  or  philo- 

1  Reprinted  from  the  British  Weeklt/,  March  7,  1901. 

279 


28o  APPENDIX 

sophic  system,  inherent  testimony  to  its  genesis  and  scope  is  of 
great  value.  Well,  the  man  whom  we  account  the  greatest 
religious  genius  that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  Apostle  Paul, 
found  it  necessary  to  discover  the  relation  of  the  earlier  revela- 
tion, to  that  whose  spiritual  content,  in  so  far  as  it  affected  the 
individual  and  the  Church,  he  was  honoured  of  God  to  unfold 
for  all  time.  He  lived  nearly  two  thousand  years  nearer  than  we 
to  the  revelation  whose  history  he  explored.  He  was  a  son  of 
that  Jewish  Church.  He  stood  in  the  living  currents  of  an  as 
yet  unextinguished  nationality.  He  took  time  to  cut  his  way 
through  the  dead  deposits  of  tradition,  and  if  he  had  not  what 
Professor  Smith  calls  "  the  finer  instruments  of  criticism,"  he 
had  what  is  of  infinitely  more  value  in  seeking  back  to  the  roots 
of  a  living  religious  system,  he  had  an  intellectual  genius  that  no 
show  or  seeming  could  elude,  a  sanctity  that  burned  its  way 
through  human  dreams  into  the  revealed  presence  of  God. 

He  there  found  the  motive  powers  of  Old  Testament  revela- 
tion, in  the  promise  of  God  to  Abraham,  and  His  covenant  with 
the  people  through  Moses. ^  The  whole  upward  movement 
started  from  these  head-centres.  Even  the  prophets,  though 
they  registered  a  significant  advance,  were  less  absolutely 
creative.  They  moved  between  the  foci  of  promise  in  the 
far  past,  and  fulfilment  in  the  future.  Now  in  this  there  is  a 
judgment  of  the  course  which  revelation  pursued,  embedded  in 
the  heart  of  the  New  Testament.  And  it  is  to  be  noticed  that 
these  are  the  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  which  criticism  pul- 
verises. Professor  Smith  tells  us  that  there  is  a  reaction  of  late 
in  favour  of  admitting  the  personality  of  Abraham.  But  these 
old  stories  are  late  "efforts  to  account  for  the  geographical  dis- 
tribution of  neighbouring  nations,"  with  mayhap  "  a  substratum 
of  actual  personal  history."  And  then  with  a  strange  vivacity 
he  adds,  "  But  who  wants  to  be  sure  of  more  ?  Who  needs  to 
be  sure  of  more  ?  "  There  is  a  character  in  French  history  who 
will  live  by  a  phrase.  He  precipitated  the  Franco-German 
1  Galatians  iii. 


APPENDIX  281 

War  "  with  a  light  heart."  No  one  appreciates  more  than  we 
do  the  eager  alert  intellect  and  beautiful  Christian  spirit,  in  many 
directions,  of  Professor  Smith.  We  would  not  injure  him  with  a 
harsh  thought,  but  he  is  dealing  with  a  problem  some  aspects  of 
which  he  does  not  consider,  and  with  interests  the  most  sacred 
in  the  world.  His  criticism  may  or  may  not  be  well  founded, 
but  it  strikes  at  the  unity  of  revelation,  it  annihilates  the  first 
creative  step  in  that  revelation,  and  discredits  the  judgment  of 
Paul,  which  was  that  of  all  the  Apostles  and  their  Lord.  And 
that  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  a  preacher  of  the 
Evangel  of  Christ. 

But  we  recall  the  fact  that  Professor  Smith  allows  a  certain 
element  of  revelation  in  the  Old  Testament.  He  can  only 
explain  what  he  finds  in  the  Old  Testament  on  the  supposition 
that  "there  was  an  authentic  revelation  of  the  one  true  God." 
That  sounds  decidedly  comforting,  but  when  we  take  pains  to 
see  what  is  meant  our  difficulties  by  no  means  disappear.  An 
authentic  revelation,  how  can  that  be  ?  Moses,  indeed,  is  con- 
ceded to  have  been  a  real  person.  His  time  was  in  some  sort 
creative.  But  where  is  the  valid  authoritative  discovery  by 
God  of  Himself?  We  are  told  that  we  are  not  on  historic 
ground  here.  We  do  not  know  that  one  divine  utterance  is 
genuine.  Dr  Smith  confesses  that  the  proof  is  most  difficult. 
The  most  which  he  can  say  is  that  a  personal  influence  of  God 
on  the  history  "is  its  most  natural  and  scientific  explanation." 

That  may  be  revelation,  but  not  on  the  Christian  or  Jewish 
(as  we  have  hitherto  believed),  but  on  a  lower  level — not  God 
discovering  Himself  in  a  creative  word,  calling  men  into  a  new 
experience,  starting  a  great  historical  progress ;  but  rather  like 
the  dimmer  vision  caught  in  the  mysteries  of  heathen  faiths. 
And  the  whole  treatment  of  revelation  is  on  that  line.  "  Israel 
looked  to  Jahweh  as  Moab  looked  to  Chemosh,"  and,  more 
remarkable  still,  the  religion  of  Israel  remained  "before  the  age 
of  the  great  prophets,  not  only  similar  to,  but  in  all  respects 
above  mentioned   identical  with,  the   general    Semitic  religion. 


282  APPENDIX 

which  was  not  a  monotheism,  but  a  polytheism,  with  an  oppor- 
tunity for  monotheism  at  the  heart  of  it." 

That  is  a  picture  of  the  elusive,  uncertain  character  of  this 
whole  theoretical  reconstruction.  The  only  justification  of  it 
would  be  that  the  religious  sense  should  at  once  recognise  this 
as  self-evidently  the  divinely  original  method  of  God's  un- 
veiling. The  only  thing,  however,  which  it  does  satisfy  is 
a  current  view  of  the  growth  and  progress  of  religions.  To 
the  religious  sense  it  betrays  at  once  its  external  and  artificial 
origin,  while  it  leaves  the  genesis  of  the  prophetic  age  a  greater 
mystery  than  ever. 

The  truth  is,  the  whole  hypothesis  is  naturalistic.  It  grew 
up  on  that  soil.  And  the  attempt  to  introduce  a  duly  toned- 
down  and  graduated  presence  and  entrance  of  God  into  a 
naturalistic  scheme  is  beyond  the  wit  of  man.  God  makes 
an  absolute  beginning.  He  starts  on  His  own  plane.  He 
lifts  to  new  levels  and  propels  on  new  Hnes.  And  any  created 
substitute  for  Him  is  a  Dagon  that  may  stand  till  the  Ark 
of  God  come  in,  till  a  closer,  more  vivid  sense  of  the  presence 
of  God  fill  a  people,  when,  behold,  it  falls  on  its  face — head 
and  arms  broken,  and  only  the  stump  left  of  him. 

But  what  if  we  have  no  option  ?  That  is  Professor  Smith's 
thought.  He  says  that  criticism  has  won  as  against  the  tra- 
ditional view,  and  that  it  only  remains  to  discuss  the  indemnity. 
We  marvelled  at  that.  But  the  situation  is  very  different. 
A  generation  of  Christian  scholars,  setting  aside  tradition,  have 
presented  a  view  of  the  origin  of  Hebrew  religion,  and  have 
sustained  that  view  by  most  burdensome  processes  of  disin- 
tegration and  reconstitution.  After  oscillations  enough  they 
have  approximated  to  an-  agreement.  And  Professor  Smith 
presents  their  case  for  recognition  in  the  teaching  of  the 
Church.  But  stating  a  case  is  not  settling  a  case.  And  we 
do  not  generally  allow  the  men  who  make  the  difficulty  to 
fix  the  indemnity.  They  have  brought  out  their  theory  from 
the  cloister,  and  subjected  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church. 


APPENDIX  283 

It  must  bear  to  be  looked  at  from  every  side  and  in  varied 
lights.  Especially  are  there  two  tests  that  will  have  to  be 
applied.  First,  is  this  scientifically  sound  ?  Secondly,  is  it 
adequate  as  an  account  of  the  origin  and  inner  development 
of  the  revelation  process  that  culminated  in  Christ  ?  So  far 
as  affects  the  testimony  of  the  Church  to  the  world,  the 
Arian  controversy  was  not  more  vital,  and  certainly  it  was 
not  so  complex. 

How  long  did  that  controversy  sway  to  and  fro  ?  To  what 
heights  did  the  Arian  power  rise  ?  It  is  with  no  light  heart, 
we  note  the  hold  these  views  have  in  the  Churches.  It  may 
be  that  the  conflict  of  several  generations  will  be  needed.  And 
we  have  no  hope  or  desire  save  for  the  truth,  the  sifted  truth. 
But  there  is  much,  and  there  will  be  more,  to  be  said  about 
the  scientific  soundness  of  this  theory.  The  hypothesis  is  far 
and  away  the  most  violent  that  has  ever  been  employed  to 
reconstruct  the  history  and  literature  of  a  people.  If  its  work- 
ing out  be  elaborate,  its  foundations  are  highly  speculative. 
What  archaeology  has  done  is  to  take  away  the  justification 
for  such  an  extreme  theory,  and  to  increase  the  verisimilitude 
of  the  traditional  belief.  In  anthropology,  too,  and  the  science 
of  religion,  there  are  recent  views  very  illuminative  on  the 
place  of  ancient  Israel. 

We  would  like  to  go  back  to  what  Professor  Smith  truly 
says  at  page  5.  "The  New  Testament  Scriptures  were 
selected  and  defined  no  man  exactly  knows  how,  except  that 
it  was  the  Church  herself  that  did  the  Work."  Ay,  and  to 
the  consecrated  people  of  Christ  constituting  His  living  Church 
this  must  go.  They  live  with  God:  God  works  through 
them.  Revelation  is  to  them  the  ultimate  reality,  but  a  reality 
whose  laws,  and  properties,  and  sequences  they  know.  And 
if  this  theory  does  not  commend  itself  to  them  as  a  vital 
discovery  from  within,  of  the  way  by  which  God  has  come 
into  the  knowledge  of  His  creatures,  then,  with  all  its  great 
names,  it  will  have  to  go  into  the  limbo  of  forgotten  things. 


PRINTED   BY 

TURNBULL  AND  SPEARS, 

EDINBURGH 


DATE  DUE 

«nv  A  r\  1985 

1 

1 

DEMCO  38-297 

iH!|:|I,l!|!!!H 


BS500 .S65 

The  integrity  of  Scripture  :  plain 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 
II 


1    1012  00043  8228 


